Here is a note from a happy participant at the Foley House Table at dinner on Baker Lawn, slightly edited for public consumption...
What an immense pleasure it was last weekend, to see everyone and ponder anew the remarkable time we spent together at Foley House! I attach two photos of the high point--Saturday night dinner--courtesy of Renée. Hats off to Tom for reserving the tables.
I think I speak for most of us when I say that I would not have survived Dartmouth without Foley House. It was a refuge (for many of us). What wonderful, wonderful conversations and events we shared.
Colleagues often ask how (we) could have belonged to a fraternity at Dartmouth. When they think of Dartmouth, they rightly have visions of Animal House. I usually explain by saying that we were not the normal fraternity, and that our idea of a good time was:
- Breaking out a keg and having Professor Gaylord over to read Chaucer’s “Miller’s Tale” in Middle English
- Watching a three-hour black-and-white German film, without subtitles, on the Nibelung saga, with Gippin and Newbold providing a running translation of the German
- Bringing in a Steinway D concert grand piano, and having Lydia Hoffmann-Behrendt give a recital
- Having Music Professor James Sykes over for House Party Weekend to play Broadway tunes, including songs that didn’t make the final show
- Talking endlessly, late into the night, about social and political issues
- Competing in the Interfraternity Play competition, with Arthur and Eric Forsythe leading the way
- Shamelessly stealing the theme from the last movement of Brahms’ First Symphony for our house song (“Now Come, Men of Foley . . . “)
It was a zany, remarkable place, and I think it shaped all of us in beneficial ways.
It was great getting together! Shall we do this again, in a year or two, in New York?
