There they all were-the veritable image of geographical distribution-sitting in the Waldorf Cafeteria on Mass Ave, freshman roommates enjoying their first late-night snack in Cambridge. A cool one a.m. in September, 1967. The next night they went out again, this time to the Bick for ham and eggs. They don't do this anymore, of course. This year the Bick and Waldorf disappeared without a trace-and the roommates Harvard so carefully brought together no longer live with each other.

Said one Harvard senior a few weeks ago: "What happened was that everyone from the upper class joined PL [Progressive Labor party] and all the middle-class kids joined NAC [heir to the old SDS New Left caucus] or became Weathermen. Now the rich kids are going out to the factories and the middle-class ones are going to become doctors and lawyers. The revolution does seem far away."

There are other graduates who want to make movies or go into business. And others who are going to work for McGovern or McCloskey or Nader. And others who, as it turns out, are going to do nothing at all.

It was a mixer at Lowell House during that first fall, and Ted, who no longer exchanged letters with the cheerleader he had loved in high school, asked a Simmons girl to dance. Out in the quad, under a crescent moon, he sat the girl down and proceeded to get to third base. A week later he took her to the top of Prudential Center. But she would not go home with him at midnight, and did not want to smoke dope, and did not want to join Ted in bidding adieu to virginity. So he went home to masturbate and never called her again.

It had been the distinct impression of many members of Harvard '71 that the following things would have happened by the time of commencement: the war would be over, almost everyone's chromosomes would have been destroyed by LSD, everyone else would get married, racial peace and harmony would be a fact of American life, the Beatles would make another tour of the U.S.

The sophomores were standing in the Yard, hugging each other and crying and screaming. The sun was coming up and they had just seen, among other things in the dim light, the sight of helmeted policemen striking a boy in a wheelchair with bully clubs.

During the year that followed these sophomores would get together again, late at night, and scream. Nathan Pusey had brought the police to Harvard Yard. No one knows if he has screamed in the years that followed. Or indeed if he ever screamed in his life. Nathan Pusey is graduating, too, now.

When the class of '71 arrived at Harvard, a lot of people had just heard Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and seen Blow Up . Many of them went out and bought stereos with earphones, cameras with long lenses, and drugs.

One senior is going to work at an educational TV station. Another five are planning a radical video-tape and film producing collective. There is, overall, a lot of talk about the ongoing cassette revolution.

"I've discovered," said a senior last week, "that if I'm getting bored and want to change the topic of conversation, all I have to do is say I'm going to kill myself. It generally works. I mean, it's usually enough to switch the conversation to something else-not to whether I'm actually going to commit suicide or not, because they know I'm not going to do that but just to a more interesting subject than they were talking about before."

Harvard-Yale, 29-29. None of the then sophomores could see a damn thing, because all the upperclassmen and Overseers had the good seats. Some of the sophomores, of course, sold their tickets to the millionaire graduates of years past. Six-dollar tickets went for $100.

Mike Nichols made a lot of money with The Gradaute at the end of freshman year. Some came away from that picture wishing that they had Alfa-Romeos like Dustin Hoffman did. Others were disturbed that, seeing that film, no one would ever know that there was a Vietnam and a draft.

But the war came. To wit: The strawberry Statement. Push Comes to Shove, Getting Straight, Windsong, Charles Reich, The Whole World is Watching . When the war came, it came with a vengeance.

When the death toll out in Yuba City, California, surpassed the magic number 16 (held by sniper Charles Whitman, Austin, Texas) two weeks ago, some Harvard seniors were so thrilled they nearly threw a party. This was an event! If the toll passes 30, there may be fireworks in the Square.

Paul and Sue dropped acid. They tripped over to Soldiers' Field and split another cap on the fifty-yard-line. Then they walked to the Business School, glided into an empty court yard, and heard the "Tara" theme from Gone With the Wind being played on a distant phonograph.