Never Promised a Pointsettia: At a City Council meeting recently, a thoughtful city employee decided to provide pointsettia plants on the desks of all nine city councillors. All the plants had red and green leaves--except for the one on the desk of Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55. The enterprising--and slightly miffed--Duehay corrected the situation by switching plants with his neighbor, Councillor William H. Walsh at the end of the meeting. Not to be bested by a political opponent, Walsh switched the plants back before a meeting the next day.

Lampoon "Humor" Department: The not-so-funny phools down the road from 14 Plympton St. have never been too fond of the city-planted tree in front of their castle-like abode. In fact, Harvard lore has it that the poonsters have been trying to kill off the hapless arbor for many a year. But former Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci, never one to be bested by third-rate humorists, has turned the tables yet again by designating the structure which once housed Elmer W. Green as "Freedom Square." The freedom-loving capitalist Malcolm Forbes would be proud. Members of The Lampoon could not be reached for comment.

A Note to The Perspective: Harvard's most respected--and only--liberal monthly made a valiant attempt at some humor of their own in this month's issue. They even took the opportunity to get in some jibes at Cambridge's only breakfast-table daily. But in the Perspective's "calendar" of events to come this spring, they failed to get the joke quite right. They predicted that The Crimson would change its official form "freshperson" to "freshper-offspring." What they failed to note, however, is The Crimson's official/unofficial term for first-year students: freshperchild.

The Season Begins and Ends Tonight: That's what we thought when we had to venture to University Health Services late last night for a little emergency treatment. But we realized that we were not alone when the nice doctor who was treating us told us that we were not the first ones to come seeking stitches this evening. One yet-to-be-named varsity hockey player had also stopped in for some of UHS' famous needlework. The doctor, upon learning our affiliation with The Crimson, refused to disclose the identity of the mystery hockey player, but he did mention that the sight of blood was too much for even the NCAA champion to handle.

Things We Didn't Cover: Although we have an insatiable fondness for press releases and other media events, this one somehow escaped our ever-vigilant attention. But we report it here, in the hopes that it will not go forgotten in the annals of Harvard history. The story is that Ellen Hume, executive director of the Shorenstein-Barone Center for Press, Politics, and Public Policy and former Wall Street Journal reporter extraordinaire, took Cybill Shepherd (you know, the TV star) to lunch at the Faculty Club on Wednesday. We're not sure what to make of this event, but it might have been important. You decide.

The Story Behind the Tan: We present this next item as a public service for all our loyal readers who may be having important meetings with the dean this week. Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence, that is. You might notice upon arrival in Spence's plush University Hall corner office that he is unusually tan. And since we wouldn't want anyone to think that Spence had been going to a tanning salon or anything, we note that the dean was seen on a plane Tuesday. The plane took off from Florida, and the dean was on it--complete with unnatural winter skin coloring. It could not be confirmed whether Spence's trip had anything to do with fundraising.