Only Two Million More, Art, That's All

Two legends make the rounds this time of year. The first, the story of Sidney Pumpton requires little comment, but the second, the sad tale of George Everett, provides an important message for struggling undergraduates.

George Everett joined the Student Empathy League shortly after he came to college. He soon learned to take his change in nickels and as time wore on, he was soon in all the important pinball parlors, the old Mike's Club, George's, Harry's.

As many do, he made his way through the academic whirl, studying while waiting his turn, reading notes when the repair man came, discussing lectures while someone got change.

Things proceeded along these lines until the exam period of his senior year. George Everett had done well enough and was on his way to the old Gov. 55b final, his last in college, when it happened.

Everett stopped at Harry's for breakfast, and between his orange juice and coffee, he decided to put one nickel into an old, delapidated MARYLAND machine. Old timers remember that it was just 9:05 when he pulled back the plunger for that first ball. Just what happened, how it happened, no one knows, but when the bells stopped ringing. Everett had won seven free games.

Everyone knows the story from there. Too much of a sport to leave the games, he played them out, picking up two more in the course of his efforts. When he finished it was 9:35. The smile with which Lady Luck had beamed at Everett for four years suddenly turned to a dirty leer. He ran to Mem Hall and the proctor refused to admit him. He flunked the course, and thus out of college. His girl left him and his parents disowned him. And thus George Everett was started on the flashing road to ignominy.