BY 4 p.m. and the men's championship eights, only hardcore fans remained--meaning those who actually knew something about the sport and the athletes. One, a would-be crewbie, side-lined by a crushed thumb in a weight-room accident, kept screaming, "Go Columbia!"

The Harvard Business School's boat drifted by, its coxswain trying to scream more horsepower out of his exhausted future pinstripers in a futile attempt to catch Brown's varsity team. The Columbian crew-meisters on the bank gasped at the B-School team's audacity for having dollar signs on their scull blades and on the backs of their jerseys.

"Tacky, tacky," one sniped.

BUT for the average Joe and Jane Harvard, burdened by papers, looking for a quiet restaurant in the Square, what do the milling crowds, the rows of portable lavatories all mean? Is there a purpose to the social event the Head has blossomed into? "It's like an L.L. Bean convention," said one insightful visitor from Dartmouth.

Fair enough. And remember the found, if cryptic, farewell of one Andover alumnus to another: "Have a good lemon-drop fest. Good seeing you. Thanks for the brew."

Ah, yes. The Head of the Charles. It just doesn't get any better than this.