If the green plastic covered floors and metal ceilings of the Palmer-Dixon Courts have a nostalgic association for the Class of 1982 already, it's for the fall of their freshman year, when the enormous room hosted the only other extent that requires seating room for an entire class and its parents-the freshman parents' weekend luncheon.

And at last night's Class '82 clambake, more than a few seniors echoed a variation of the platitude that a class only appears en masse at freshman year opening exercises and at Commencement, by harking back to the last time they brought their parents across the river for a meal. Mostly, they said this year's food was better.

"This whole week is food," said Joph Steckel, a Winthrop House senior "I knew it'd he something like this but I didn't expect it to be this large."

Steckel was disposed to take the cyclical view; this week, he said, he sat down and read through a copy he had staved of the pre-registration Crimson mailed to him before freshman year. "Four years from now," he said, "I'll sit down and look at it again."

Despite a few complaints of cold clams, senior seemed pleased enough to contemplate giving the cycle another whirl in future years. "Oh, I'll definitely come back; it's a regular big party," said Kevin McHugh, an Eliot House resident who consequently is watching the 25th reunion participants fro close range.

"I'll probably come back every chance I get," said Steven Fine of Mather House, adding, "Some of the romantic nostal- gic stuff feels overdone, but that's just become we'll still long and take it for granted, getting to see Mem Church and the river every day. Now the feeling's beginning to not in that our time here is limited."

But at least one good guest seemed willing, if only for the moment, to put all thoughts of reunions out of his mind. "I really don't have anything to say at all," apologized David A. Aloian '49, director of Associated Harvard Alumni and father of Winthrop House senior Michael, as he watched over the hundreds of munching families with an only slightly proprietary air, "I'm just a typical parent.