SATURDAY night. Midnight. Packs of jeering, snow-laden combatants rushed past, pouncing on their targets, smothering any attempted defense, and thoroughly dousing their victims. My clothes were caked in snow, and my head covered in frost after emerging victorious from the flurry of winter warfare.

Shouts and powder flew in every direction, in every face. My dead-eye Minnesota aim, cultivated through many years of schoolyard skirmishes, clobbered numerous California-bred friends. The practiced Yankee Yardlings had met up with the sun-belt greenhorns in a frenzied free-for-all that only Mother Nature could have provoked.

What began as an especially malicious round of the "Thayer sucks, Holworthy bites" war of verbs had escalated into a classwide snowball fight of avalanche proportions. Yet the sight of hundreds of impassioned first-year Harvardians clashing and writhing about the snow-packed ground with reckless abandon, was not just an example of the old run-of-the-mill Veritas spirit. No, this was a rare attack of the Wild Weather Syndrome--the third to hit the Yard this year.

The bug first infected Yardlings in epidemic proportions this fall when the gales of Gloria dared them to stand up or get blown away. Droves of afflicted 'shmen braved the furious gusts--racing the wind and playing dodge the falling tree branches. Mother Nature's second curve ball this year drew out sun-bathers and frisbee fans alike under the summery trance of sunny weather. And now the third installment in this year's series of climatic climaxes once again lured swarms of freshmen out of their brick-insulated homes--this time into the winter-white expanse stretching from John Harvard's snow-covered nose to Mass Hall.

WHEN THIS Dr. Jeckyll-Mr. Hyde metamorphosis hits Harvardians, the rest of the world may as well not exist. Academia and all of its pressing concerns are forgotten. Cramming for the Ec 10 final or getting a start on second semester assignments is exchanged for the zealous pursuit of weather-induced pleasure. The Yard is transformed from the major thoroughfare to and from lecture halls into a playground for the happy residents of Camp Harvard. When an exotic storm or heat wave hits, camp is in session. Enjoyment of weather-related activities becomes the sole raison d'etre, and passions, not goals, are given free reign.

But this hedonistic mindset lasts only as long as the ephemeral elements that cause it. As I ran, snowball in hand, amid fellow frolicking freshmen, I heard an alarming piece of conversation. "Are you taking Chem 20?" queried one snowball thrower of his companion. When I realized that the classwide fun and games in the Yard would soon give way to individual quests for second semester success, the veil of frost glazing my vision quickly cleared.

Irregular weather had brought us together in the spirit of carefree abandonment, but dazzling, snow-filled skies would inevitably clear for the usual Cambridge chill. Camp Harvard is only in session when Mother Nature has the time to be an indulgent proctor and pamper her charges with a climatic study break.

I turned around and beaned the Chem jock.