I got my first kiss, if you could call it that,from a lanky Harvard Chemist I met at a folkdance. One rainy spring night on the Esplanade, wetook refuge under the bandshell. We talked forhours holding hands (this was getting serious!),and on Class Night under his brilliant porchlight, he delivered a very quick peck to my leftcheek.
Was such restraint uncommon? Maybe not. "Formost, virginity-'tilmarriage was still the norm(from which deviations did occur) and notnecessarily felt as childishness to be trashed atthe first opportunity. In '44, The Pill wasunheard of, and God was still a He. Unless you hada married lady's arcane information, chastityprevented peck of troubles. (You didn't have tolike it. Many complained.)
Still, in that world without sex, drugsor alcohol, there was fun to be had, whetherorganized (as at Choral or rehearsals for "DonaRosita") or disorganized (as in late night debateson questions like "Would you rather bereincarnated as a blind, deaf, quadriplegic dwarfor as a fully functioning clam?").
There was usually something enjoyable to put inmy "Solemn Column" for The Radcliffe News.
Nocturnal capers included dancing throughCambridge Common (with boys and girls just met andnever seen again) until we came to the Civil Warmonument, which was clearly put there to bescaled. On top, joining hands, we danced atmidnight a teetery horaaround the statue ofAbe Lincoln.
It's almost embarrassing, now, to recall theshenanigans going on while our age-mates abroadagonized through World War II and the Holocaust(of which we learned long after graduating).
The war, or course, was on our minds as we gaveblood or attended lectures on poison gas, andstudents volunteered where hands were needed inhospitals, settlement houses, factories or appleorchards.
Some of us put on shows for servicemen, theDance Club hopping through Mexican steps, theFrench Club inventing a cabaret for the crew of aFree French warship in Boston Harbor. For thisevent, from a record, I learned to sing "LeFiacre." Later, I corresponded with one sailor ashis maraine-de-guerre(godmother-of-war)--until French censors found, inone of his letters to me, a snapshot of his ship.For this lapse, my godson-of-war did some time inthe brig.
Our classmate Whiz (Marilyn Whisman [Monsour]'45-'44) organized a Radcliffe Entertainment Unit,to bring cheer to men in bleak barracks. In aBoston club for seamen, the stage lacking steps,we ran down an aisle and jumped three feet to getaboard, our inebriated audience meanwhile snoringloudly through the show.
Once, I came to doubt our" cheer" as I prancedin pink tutu up and down an Army hospital wardbetween beds of bandages and casts andbadlywounded soldiers from the Italian campaign;this audience, I felt, might rather be left alone.
One dark night, a cold two-hour bus ridebrought us to an Army camp where we dressed in afrigid food-storage locker and performed in thecrowed mess hall (where the men, long deprived offemale company, seemed obsessed with stroking ourhair).
Whiz in her scarlet gown was a hit as thedanced and sang "Flaming Mamie." Then I croaked myditty , "I Wish I Was a Femme Fatale" (alas, I hada long way to go). Applause broke out when I,high-kicking my way to the hoped-for but unseenexit, sprawled into a sandbox used forextinguishing incendiary devices.
It has been 50 years of mind-blowingworldwide changes, some wrought from ideas orexperiments started here. Radcliffe and Harvardare irreversibly altered, more complex anddiversified, and for whom daily life includestelevision, computers, on-line networks, rollerblades and more.
Yet despite impressive growth, University lifehurtles onward, just as a 1897 when my father atehis mutton there.
Mem Hall will again become a student diningcenter.
Next year's students will probably study,agonize, complain, throw snowballs, sing andbehave nuttily at strange hours.
Professors still will strive to press onemeaningful thought into many skulls. Here andthere will come that sudden gasp of revelation.
It is the same as with as, half a century ago.How lucky we were then, to be here.
How lucky now for the same reason.