The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-08-10
The Firing Line By D. N. T.
OLD COLLEGE DAYS

Perhaps this series of vacation filters should have been headed Dear Old College Days" The af- fectionate qualifier seems indispens- able to almost any review of the halcyon times in the academic grove, even when the review is be- ing made by member of last years graduating class. The sdays are always. old" even before the neWnesS is rubbed off and the pa tina of remembered things sup plants it; always dear even when the designation is succinctly deris- i've, subtIy satirical.
 As matter of fact, the days were not always dear" more particu- larly when they were young. Look ing backward, all the fellows were jolly and all the professors were cases. But then, THEN, there was generous smattering of stinkers among them and that unlovely characterization is hardly susceptible to change in retropsect, if the in- dulgent alumnuS is to tell the whole truth.
 We remember as beloved the his tory professor who stretched a string across the entrance to the classroom at the exact height of No YoolaO,o Rom arar-a cO that frncb = men, rushing headlong toward his lecture, would have to duck to get in and thus have impressed upon their minds, for all time, Nap's insufficient stature. But we forget that the old goat handed out c minuses for B plus work because he did not like the condition of someone's notebook, which he in- spected regularly, (pointing with his beard) like a high school domestic science teacher looking for flaws in a child's basting.
 We remember good old Ambrose Lightship. the sage senior who ad- monished up against the social crime of calling fraternity a frat" or of wearing closed galOsh- es, with warmth and joy. But we forget-that he never returned that l forget-that he never returned that first edition of Smoke and Steel, that he Host" the alarm clock he borrowed, that he never did come up with his share of the hotel bill for the Harvard game, and that he now is earning S35,000 and no/100 year, plus bonuses.
 We remember when Spring came sWarming over the hills and into the trees and lawns; we forget the bitter winds of Winter We re- member the week ends; we forget the weeks.
 Delight for delight and tear for tear, college days are no more and no less dead than the humdrum run of days out in the wide, wide world They had their assets, and they, too, had their liabilities. Some little thing, an old tune, an old joke, a picture in the Alumni Magazine, is always bringing them back as joy neat, however.
 Perhaps that is salutary thing Distress nearly always is immediate. i Fortunately it erodeS in the minds of men, and if there is one period in their lives which time caps with total erosion, then who are We to summon stark realities and the proof of woe that it contained?
 Reunions are likely to breed dis aSter for the remembrance of things past, what with the flashing cars and bankrolls of the Little Un- knoWnS who are now great, the lightning halfback'S bulging paunch, the mousy, rundown look of the Man Most Likely to Succeed, and the gray hair of the Golden Girls who have become Mundane Matrons and herd their Juniors and Jills to safety islands while Father ap- breaches the reunion jug with a wicked gleam in his eye and old cronies on his mind. But they still are good for the soul, for they re- create, in all their pristine splendor that joie de Vivre of college days, edited by the blindness of the years. Old college days
 Dear old college days.