John Spooner '59, a writer and investment banker, recalls a deal he made with his six freshman roommates a quarter of a century ago. "Everyone in that room wanted to write a novel," he says. "We had one title that would belong to the first published writer among us: 12 Minutes to Park Street." The title now belongs to Spooner, who says he is still toying with possible storylines.

When many of Spooner's classmates look back at their Harvard years, they come up with phrases that sound like flashy book titles.

To Kenneth Auchincloss, now the managing editor of Newsweek, Harvard infused its students with "a fierce independence." Guido Goldman, the director of Harvard's Center for European Studies, recalls "the pluralism of the experience." Peter Brooks, a professor of French and comparative literature at Yale, remembers "that certain elegance." Robert Watkins III, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., recalls alliteratively, "the supreme sense of self-confidence." And Missouri-born Perry Smith, then the president of the Lampoon and now an Episcopal priest, sums up his college experiences as if they were part of a fable: "Little midwestern boy came and made good."

To playwright Arthur Kopit, whose works include Wings, Nine, and the current End of the World, four years at Harvard defies encapsulations. What would he title a play about his undergraduate career? "I don't like nostalgia," he says. "I find

It's a dangerous emotion. It's not productive" Besides, he adds, "Harvard's a rarefied place" He pauses.

"It's like," he says finally, "a magic mountain."

The Class of '59's recollections traffic freely from one unlikely coordinate to the next; from Joan Baez to Fidel Castro, from Santa Claus to bubble baths to fierce religious controversy. "You could do whatever you wanted," recalls the playwright David Rintels.

These men were part of the generation too young for Korea and "just too old for Viet Nam." Spooner says. "We were never threatened the feeling then was 'we are immune to everything and everything wonderful was going to happen to us.' That's what my first novel was about," he continues. He reflects for a moment, "Actually, that's what most first novels are about."

"The first freedom ride was just around the corner. Goldman recalls "People were just beginning to think that ideals and political action were not so separate."

The Class of '59's years here began with one fiery event--the tower of Memorial Hall burned down after their freshman exams--and ended with another: Fidel Castro's speech outside the Harvard Stadium in the spring of their senior year. "His speech was demagogic." Hawkins says of the Cuban leader's appearance shortly after his rise to power. "Afterwards, when the series of executions in Cuba became known, attitudes changed radically. But then he was simply a visiting celebrity."

Within this time frame, the Class of '59 welcomed the opportunity to be "opened up like a sardine can," as Spooner says to listen to Joan Baez, who sang regularly at Tullah's a coffee house on Mt. Auburn Street.

Kopit's history with Harvard undergraduate theater indicates the unlimited opportunities of those days. "There was so much original theater," he says of a time when three or four new productions went up each weekend. "We felt very fortunate that there was no official drama department. With the Loeb came an institutionalization of theater," he adds.

While Kopit says he recognizes the advantages of the Loeb, and welcomes its presence, he remains grateful that, 25 years ago, "we had to do it all. There was freedom to fail. The sheer pleasure of working in Harvard theater has rarely been matched."

Students staged several of Kopits's plays, including On the Runway of Life. You Never Know What's Coming Off Next, and Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad, which went on to become one of his first critical successes.

Kopit also recalls a tradition of Christmas plays, performed just before the winter break. He wrote one, entitled Don Juan in Texas. "It had to do with getting some Radcliffe girls in a bubble bath," he says.