"Look at the rowboats," they invariably shout, and then wave energetically. Since you have only as many hands as oars, it is almost impossible to wave back. Nevertheless, friendly passengers or not, it is a scientific fact that at least once this spring you will be tipped over by the excursion boat.

This brings us to man's final attack upon the sculler, the nuclear age as evidenced by the Sanitary Engineering Department's discovery. Perhaps for the first time the sculler has no chance. Previously impervious in the face of rock and Evinrude, he bravely fought back, head over shoulder, his eyes peeled for trouble. That was in the old days. Now trouble is all around him, he is rowing on trouble.

In the spring of 1953 and 1954 people would turn to me and say:

"Look, if sculling's that dangerous, if people are always throwing at you and trying to sink you, why not quit? Why do you do it?"

"Escape," I would answer. "No problem of coexistence on the river. No Iron curtain, only the Lars Anderson Bridge. Why, for all it matters, the Czars might still be ruling Russia."

That was in the old days. Now atomic fission is everywhere. Nowhere is the conflict between East and West, Communism and Democracy, so clearly outlined as on the Charles River. A nightmare is haunting today's single sculler: the vision of a motorboat filled with little boys. The little boys are armed with rocks, and they pursue him relentlessly until he is capsized into the nuclear waters of the Charles, Cambridge's first casuality from radioactivity.

(Reprinted by permission from the Harvard Alumni Bulletin of April 23, 1955.