THE CLASSMATE lunged frantically into the carpeted splendor of the Essex Country Club locker room, just in time to pitch the blending of a New England boiled lobster, a day's worth of bloody marys, gin and tonics, and scotch-on-the-rocks, and a schedule of tennis, golf, and after-dinner dancing squarely into the hopper. At first, he only groaned; his hands anchored to the enamel circle, he prayed for his heart to fall back into first without tearing out the transmission. And then he began with methodic attention to wipe from his face the vomit and sweat.

"I must be crazy," he moaned for all in the room to hear. "I came all the way from England for this. Shit, I should see a psychoanalyst."

"But what do I do?" answered a voice from the neighboring stall. "I am a psychoanalyst."

One of the bartenders happened to hear it all, and, within the hour, the rest of us, the chauffeurs and porters and barkeeps and aides that had been hired to work for the reunioning 25th, had also heard the story and had shaken our heads in pretended amazement.

Every year the 25th Reunion Class spends $250,000 in treating itself to what one member of the Class of '44 called, "the best week of my life." As far as most undergraduates are concerned, Reunion Week only means that they are summarily forced out of their rooms hours after their final exams are over to make room for the visiting hoardes. For the graduating class itself, the Reunion is simply another obstacle that gets in their way as they nervously guide bewildered parents through the narrow and overcrowded streets. And as for the College's few extant radicals, one said, "It's an opportunity for the University to get the alumni drunk so they can hold them upside down on their way out the door while they gather up all the change that falls out of those rich pigs' pockets."

But the University isn't the only one who makes money off the event. Every year a few hundred students hang around for a week after school closes to assist Buildings and Grounds in erasing any traces of a year at Harvard that could upset an alumni wife (like scum in the shower stalls and marijuana seeds in the bureau drawers), and a few dozen of the best of these are chosen to stay on to work the handful of lucrative details that oil the relentless flow of events that comprises the Reunion. The "best" are, of course, chosen by the crew captains who supervise the work effort, and the promised tips of financially flush alumni are the oft-mentioned carrots that gets everyone on the stick.

Theoretically, at least, I worked clean-up and reunion two years solely for The Experience. But actually, I, like everyone else, did it for the money. That's how I found myself driving an oversized station wagon shuttling alumni and their families from the B-school to their dorms. "So you're a Harvard student?" they would ask, while I inwardly smiled at their shock of irrecognition.

Dress and Appearance

Dark shoes, dark socks, dark pants, a dark tie, and a white shirt are suggested as your basic dress. You will be issued a white jacket to wear at all times on the job. Your appearance should be neat and clean. Beards should be trimmed and haircuts should be reasonably neat. Beyond this, it is to your advantage to have rain gear for bad weather. Umbrellas are useful and can add to your tips. In fact, all these dress and appearance suggestions are made to benefit your tips.

-from a mimeographed sheet entitled Driver Information

Now, wait a minute. True, the '69 strike had died a painful death at least a week and a half before the Class of '44 arrived on campus. But still, that was no reason to dress as if you were attending an Irish wake. So it was somewhat surprising to discover most of the assembled chauffeurs and porters adhering to "your basic dress" code. To be sure, alumni enjoy Harvard exotica-but at a distance. They certainly don't want it driving their cars and pouring them their drinks.

Also, one began to suspect after a bit, they don't want it taking their money. As the Sunday onslaught of alumni slowly settled in, the usual legends had begun to capture our souls -we heard of one guy who tipped a porter 20 bucks on purpose, and another who had done so accidentally but it also began to appear, the legends might be no more than myths. For the Class of '44 was one of the first tight-fisted groups of returnees, and examples of outrageous beneficence proved to be their exception rather than their rule.

Everyone had a theory to help explain away his disappointment. "These guys had the war to put up with," held forth the cop who stood outside the Hasty Pudding where the classmates had their nightly bacchanalia. "They haven't had time to set themselves up all the way. They're just not ready to give their money away." No, argued the more daring of us, those who hadn't combed their hair or who had left the top two buttons of pastel-colored shirts unbuttoned. "The alumni hate us. They think we're a bunch of communists."

But there was one more theory afoot. When one bellboy complained to a college-age girl he was chasing that her father was being rather stingy in the favors he dispensed, she stared at him almost dumbfounded. "Look," she said, "the way daddy figures it, you're all Harvard guys and he's a Harvard man and he just doesn't see any need for one Harvard to give money to another."

Among those people who plan class reunions - and a special incorporated body is specially set aside to do the year's work that goes into a 25th-the memory of the Class of '44 brings with it a shiver of trepidation. Most people remember how it rained for the '68 Commencement and how half the graduates had to watch the ceremonies over television if they watched it at all. Few people realize that it had also been raining for the preceding four days. Which means that, for five gawdawful days the Class of '43 sat sequestered in dining rooms and dance halls while the ice in their glasses melted and their anger turned on each other. To make matters worse, the buses that shuttled the revellers through the rain and fog to the annual Tuesday Essex outing had to stop every fifteen minutes, because a catered dinner the night before had left its toll.