Count 'em---Forty Beautiful Girls Cavort in College Pool

"Alumnus Aquaticus," anonymous donor whose check for $350,000 hastened construction of the Indoor Athletic Building Pool in 1930, probably never anticipated what goes on there now every Monday night. Monday night is "ladies' night" at the natatorium.

From 7:30 to 9:30 o'clock girls connected in practically any way with the University can splash around in the pool's 225,000 gallons of chlorinated water, whip out a bottle of Gaby, close their eyes and make believe they're back at that favorite beach or lake-all for four bits.

Designed in 1934 as a November-to-May form of recreation for wives and daughters of University officials, the Monday night program now embraces students' wives and employees of the University as well. Last year, with wives dominating attendance, the program rolled right on through June and July.

Most of Girls Married

The clientele is cosmopolitan-student wives, mostly from the graduate schools, secretaries, librarians, waitresses, and guests. Sometimes as many as 40 show up. Only once since ruddy-faced George Holly took over the information window in 1937 has a slipup interrupted the clock-like regularity of the Monday night class.

That was before the war, when four Harvard men returned to the building after a late round of squash. They were singing the song of lifebuoy under the showers when the first swimmers arrived and, in the old tradition, promptly scared the daylights out of George with a series of coy screams.

Back in the racoon-skin days, admiring Harvardians with time on their hands used to sit in the stands all night, watching the proceedings. When the gals said they appreciated this attention but felt a little like goldfish as a result of it, the HAA stepped in and "restricted the area."

Special feature of the current Monday night class is the instruction offered by Varsity diving coach Bernie Kelly. Bornie's prize pupil is Miss Patricia Dadmun, Smith graduate who vetoed the 'Cliffe because "if you're interested in athletics, Radcliffe isn't the place for you," and whose father made All-American captaining the Crimson eleven in 1914.

Most of the regular attendees are good swimmers, who think persons who lie on the beach and never go near the water are "pretty pathetic." Few of them realize that the Pool is built of ceramic tiling to prevent expansion over its exact 75 by 40 feet dimensions, slopes in depth from 8 1-2 to 11 1-2 feet, and is warmed to a Cape Coddish 73 degree.

They all know that though it bears little resemblance to a New Hampshire lake or Jones Beach, it's still a very nice place to play around in on a hot spring night while Junior frolics in dreamland and his pater dodges the academic flak.