February 23, 2008

The Times, They Are A'Changin

SOOPER-SEKRET POST TO THE FELLOW ALUMNI OF SCOGGINS NATION OUT THERE:

Perhaps it's just me, but if you had said twenty-plus years ago that Flip Rollo of all people would be signing off on alumni fundraiser letters that contained passages such as this...

Fall semester at [The People's Glorious Soviet of Middletown, CT] was full of new beginnings. With the inauguration of our new president...the entire community looked forward to learning more about his vision for [TPGSOMC]. We are writing today to let you know that we did not have to wait long to hear about an exciting new step for [the place].

...well, I'd probably have said that I had thought Scoggs wanted you to cut out smoking that stuff for the season.

Just sayin'.

Heh.

Posted by Robert at February 23, 2008 03:51 PM | TrackBack
Comments

You mean Mister "People who go to Wall Street are noxious sell-outs/Hey, being a Hedge Fund Manager is entirely ethical and soulful endeavor"???

Screw em.

Posted by: Steve-O at February 23, 2008 05:35 PM

One of my favorite all-time stories about the place happened my junior year. Professor David Adams taught a class called 'Psychology of War and Peace', and it was, I freely admit, a gut class that a few oarsmen and I took on a pass-fail basis.

The professor was a full-blown Soviet apologist who thought that Gorbachev was 'betraying the revolution' (this was 1987-88). Right down to the Russian fur hat, this wingnut toed the line. He even went so far as to say that communist countries would never fight wars (that was a problem with money-grubbing market-based democracies). I recall exploding on that one. Hungary, 1956? Czeckoslovakia, 1968? Vietnam-China? Etc.

Anyway, the best part was when he was waxing nostalgic about some pamphlet he had written with a former student. He went on and on about how devoted this woman had been to 'The Cause'.

It then occured to him that someone in the class must know her since she'd only graduated a few years earlier. Pressing the point, one fellow student reluctantly raised her hand and indicated that he did indeed know about the sainted graduate.

'Well?' demanded Adams, 'where is she?'
'...in New York', answered the student who was clearly wishing he had kept his mouth shut.
'AND??? How is she doing? What is she doing?'
[pause]
'...she's an analyst at Goldman Sachs' came the delicious reply.

The class descended into chaos, of course, because so many of us were howling as tears streamed down our faces. I don't know what Adams finally did that day; I was really trying just to be able to breathe again.

Ah, college.

Posted by: tdp at February 24, 2008 06:40 AM