Woodman Recalls Customs, Sports, Crimson of 'Eighties

(Former Harvard athlete, highest scorer in history of Harvard football,)

I shall begin by stating that the most delightful experience as an editor of the CRIMSON came from an assignment to act as correspondent from the Harvard varsity and freshmen crows then in training at Galas That was in June, 1886. The Yale races were only two weeks away, and all was bustle and interesting activity in and around the Harvard "quarters." A favorite pastime consisted in riding along the banks of the River Thames in order to catch the "time" of the Yale crews during their near at hand. Your correspondent was much at home in these "diggin's and doings" (every time I get a good start to write, I'm summoned by a nurse to be X-rayed, to have a needle injected into my arm, or to have my leg pulled on the first floor), having the previous year been captain of the freshman crew in which, believe it or not, the stroke-oar position was occupied by none other than the now "first citizen of Boston," who, being a sea-dog, should have been was a landlubber. I refer, of course, to the Hon. Charles Francis Adams.

But the most difficult assignment was to fathom the doings of the "Med. Facs," a mysterious society, the invitations to which embraced acts which if detected by the College officers might mean expansion from the University. No one could discover the identify of the six "Med. Fac." members until Harvard Class Day, when they appeared faunting on a lapel a sort of black pen-wiper with white skull-and-crossbones. Some of the antics of the "Med, Facs." become notorious, such as placing a fireman's hat on the head of the solider stop the granite monument on Cambridge Common, which the powers-that-be could not dislodge until the fire department was restore to; by squirted if off! The perpetrator became more famous for this act than for performing (her I am interupted by Dr. Franz, who takes an hour from the CRIMSON by giving me the "once-over" from top to toe, and pronouncing me fit for an interesting, up-to-date impending operation) the first successful appendectomy: Dr. Maurice Richardson.

I see that the time is short for unfolding more delightful experiences while serving on the Board of Editors of the CRIMSON. The best way to get in touch with undergraduate life at Harvard is to and graduates, just as undergraduates, who wish to keep in touch with the great Harvard living force and to comprehend its influence and service to American life, should "read, ponder, and inwardly digest" the Harvard Alumni Bulletin. The CRIMSON and the Bulletin combine to reflect the life of a great University which had a unique place in American life for more than 300 years.