That Was Then, This is Now
by David S. Blix, ’70
Editor’s Note: With all of the talk about changing traditions during this year’s homecoming, I felt it would be fitting to publish this, one of my favorite Chapel Talks on the subject. Dr. Blix graciously agreed, and the following are excerpts of his talk, delivered originally on September 13, 2007.
I would like to talk to you this morning about what it was like to be a student at Wabash in the late 1960s. More precisely, I would like to talk to you what it was like to be a student from 1966, when I entered Wabash as a freshman, and 1970, when I was graduated…I’d like to do this in two parts. First, I’d like to talk about some experiences that I shared in common with other students. Second, I’d like to talk some experiences that happened to be specifically my own, at least as far as I know. I tell these stories in the spirit of fellow who was a student at the College in my day, who used to live in Martindale, on the 4th floor. He was a religion major, if I remember correctly, and a very funny fellow. In the spring, it was his custom to fill his waste basket with water. He’d then station himself by his window, and wait for some unsuspecting wretch to pass under it. From four stories up, he’d stick the waste basket out the window, pour the water on the student below, whilst crying out at the top of his lungs, “Repent, and be baptized!” He’s now a Presbyterian minister. So here’s a deluge of stories to baptize you with.
First, then, what was it like to be a student in general in the late 1960s? Let me begin with my freshman year. In particular, let me begin with that aspect of the freshman year which had very little to do with academics and the classroom, and a lot to do with what was then called “Freshman Indoctrination.” As some of you may know, back in the late 1960s, the College had in place a program called Freshman Orientation or Freshman Indoctrination. This program applied to all freshmen—independents as well as to students in fraternities.
What did this mean in practice? Well, a whole bunch of things. Let me just go down the list, in no particular order. All freshmen wore hats called “pots.” These were green beanies with red brims and red buttons on the top, much like what the Phi Delts wear now. All freshmen were supposed to tip their pots to four groups of people: all faculty members, all members of the Senior Council, all women, and all visitors on campus. (Of course, when you came out of class, and had to cross campus, you had no idea of who was who, so you had troops of freshmen wigging their pots up and down, from one end of the Mall to the other, like caps flipping off beer bottles.) While freshmen were wearing their pots, upperclassmen played a version of “capture the flag.” Upperclassmen were at liberty to chase you, tackle you, seize your pot, and rip it up and hand it back to you. Freshmen were not allowed to sit at the round tables in the Scarlet Inn, lest they pollute the College seal which, in those days, was embossed on the backs of the chairs. Freshmen were not allowed to walk on the College seal, which was laid in linoleum the floor of the front entrance of Lilly library. Actually, nobody was supposed to walk on it, not just freshmen. (There’s carpet there now, a little past where the security gates now are. I wonder if the seal is still there.) Freshmen could enter or leave the Chapel only by the side doors—there used to be a door into the Chapel on the east side too. This was important because, in those days, we had required Chapel twice a week—once on Monday, and once on Thursday. You had an assigned seat. All freshmen sat up in the balcony, just as all sophomores sat at the back of the main floor, all juniors sat in the middle, and all seniors sat up front. All faculty sat in the part of the balcony that’s above the Chapel entrance. Attendance was required, and attendance was taken. You were allowed 10 cuts. If you missed more than 10, you were expelled from the College, no questions asked.
It goes without saying, of course, that all freshmen had to learn “Old Wabash” and the “Alma Mater.” There were two Chapel Sings, as we termed them then. They were much like what we have now, except that the Alma Mater sing took place outside, not inside. And, of course, as I suppose everybody knows, if you messed up in the end, you received, not a red “W” on a T-shirt, but a W-haircut on your head. As for other infractions—if (for instance) you accidentally walked on the College seal, or failed to tip your pot—you were summoned before the Senior Council. For the first offense, if I remember correctly, you were given a warning. For the second, you had to wear green long johns over your clothes for about a week. And for a third infraction, you also received the W-haircut.
Finally, I ought to mention the legendary event known as the pole fight. This took place just before Thanksgiving. There was a tall pole that used to stand just west of the plant, near the east end of the football field. In this event, a pot was placed on top of the pole, and the pole was slathered with grease. The sophomores gathered around the foot of the pole to defend it. The freshmen gathered some distance away in an attempt to conquer it. They were allowed three charges. That is, they could charge three times, attempt to clamber over the writhing mass of sophomores (whose arms reached up, Scylla-like, to drag you down into the well-churned mud), climb up the pole, and seize the pot. If they did—and if certain other conditions were met—the entire freshman indoctrination program ended, then and there. If the freshmen failed—which was usually the case—the program remained in effect until the end of the semester.
Such, then, were some of the common experiences that all students at Wabash underwent in the late 1960s. But what personal experiences, specific to this or that individual student? Well, there’s really only one person whose personal experiences I know about, and that’s me. So, if you will kindly indulge me, I’d like to say something about how I personally experienced Wabash in the late 1960s. By this I mean two things, sort of mixed together—my personal experience of the common experiences I just described, and then personal experiences which, as far as I know, were, well, specifically Blixonian.
But first a word of caution. Obviously, all this was a good many years ago now. And if I were to compose this talk in a month’s time, I might well remember other things. These are the things I remember this week. I also think it’s important to resist two extremes in recalling experiences like these. One extreme is to romanticize these experiences—to recall them through scarlet-colored glasses, to say how great they were, and to sigh nostalgically at the very telling of them over many a mug of beer. The other extreme is to intellectualize these experiences—to analyze them intellectually, to explain them through some theory or another (you can possibly conceive of a Freudian, psychoanalytic theory of the pole fight), and thus to distance yourself from the experiences themselves. I wish to do neither. I don’t find either of these extremes very helpful. The romanticizing extreme is uncritical. If you go that route, you run the risk of being self-indulgent. And the intellectual extreme is superficial. If you go that route, you run the risk of stifling the power of your imagination. Better, I think, simply to recall these experiences as best one can, and try to say, more or less, what they were like.
To begin with freshman indoctrination, I actually found it to be kind of fun. It was like a great game. True, I was never actually chased and tackled to the ground for my pot. But I do remember walking once past what is now the Dean’s house on Wabash Avenue, or at least somewhere near it. At least I remember that there was an iron-wrought fence. On the one side was a group of upperclassmen playing a vigorous game of touch football. On the other side was me, wearing my pot and walking humbly on the sidewalk, hoping not to be seen. As I walked past, an upperclassman suddenly reached over the fence seized my pot. Instinctively, and without thinking about it, I reached back across the fence, and seized the pot out of his hand, and slapped it back on my head and kept walking. I then glanced back, thinking he might be chasing me. But he wasn’t. He looked stunned and then broke into a smile. “Hot damn,” I thought. Well, not really, since at the time I didn’t use words like “damn.” But that was the feeling.
What about the pole fight? You will remember that I said I was a nerd. This meant, among other things, that I was very skinny, and had no athletic ability whatsoever. The good thing about being a nerd is that you learn to make your nerdiness work for you. Not only could I not imagine taking part in it, I couldn’t even imagine what good I could do. So during the pole fight, I stood up on the railroad tracks, safely out of harm’s way, and watched it from a safe distance.
And what about Chapel Sing? Not a problem. I learned the songs cold. I still remember where I stood in front of the Chapel, both times, staring at the top of the flagpole. Some upperclassmen did haze me, shouting and yelling. But I was unshakable. No W-haircut for me. But I should add—as an antidote to romanticizing—that there were a couple of fellows in our year who did get the W-haircut. They found the experience to be humiliating, and they subsequently left the College. Not good.
Let me finish with one last story. This too is about my freshman year. In the late 1960s, the College had instituted a new honors course called “Freshman Humanities.” In retrospect, it turned out to be a precursor to what later became freshman tutorials. Anyway, we were assigned a book to read before we came to the first class. If I remember correctly, it was a book by the French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, called Existentialism and Human Emotions. From my vantage point now, I probably would not recommend it as a first book for a College freshman to read. Anyway, I recall sitting in the Lilly library reading it, just before classes started. I was struggling with it. I glanced up, and there, across the way, sitting in another chair, was another student reading the same book. “Aha!” I thought, “a fellow sufferer.” At about the same moment, he saw me. He got up out of his chair and came over. He smiled and said, “Isn’t this the dumbest thing you’ve ever read in your life?!” I laughed and nodded. Then he stuck out his hand and introduced himself. “Hi,” he said, “my name is Bill Placher.” From that day forward, we became friends. And that friendship has lasted for—oh my goodness—for 40 years. For that, too, I am grateful.
So there’s the deluge of stories. I might tell others on some other occasion. But let me now stop. That was then. That was life, for me and my classmates. But this—this is now. This is your time. Please feel free to learn from the past. Feel free. Please be free, and feel it. You have the freedom to have your own experiences, in your own way, in this great, good place which we call Wabash College.
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