John Rudy remembers...

 

I was Social Chairman senior year (1966-7) and have recollections of some of the parties that I can probably write up if you do not have that data.  Jeff Wiesen, I believe, was the Baker House president that last year, Joel Shwimer was the treasurer

 

Here are some things you should have in your records -- each a story in itself:

  • Around 1965 Andy Egendorf '67 bought a pinball machine (eventually I think there were two or three).  He made a deal with the house committee where he split the profits with the house.  A lot of money.  He can also tell you about his visit from the Boston Mob and the discussions regarding stolen revenues.  Also the pin-ball convention.
  • Frank Sheehan '68 bought a hot plate.  Probably a bunch of them.  Out of one of the low numbered quads (2nd floor?) he made food all weekends.  He would pick up LOTS of very fatty hamburger at maybe 40 cents/pound and sell a lot. I don't remember what he did with the fat
  • In 1965, I believe, we had a Jungle Party (that was before my tenure).  We brought in trees, sand etc and turned the diningroom into a jungle.  At the end of the party we had to get rid of the sand.  As I recall Jeff Wiesen and Dave Lapin, and maybe others, brought it to dump in the Charles where they were picked up by the cops and accused of "polluting the Charles".  You had to live in Cambridge then to appreciate how filthy the Charles was before the reclamation project in, I think, the '90s.
  • I ran a Tom Jones party.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057590/ This was about three years after the movie, taken from the classic Fielding book, came out.  There was a great scene in the movie where Albert Finney and Susannah York had a feast, maybe in bed, with no cutlery and ended up very sticky.  Anyway, I bought 200 small chickens, 2 barrels of apples, couple of cases of red grapes with seeds, and other stuff.  Got the dining service to cook the chickens.  Had no cutlery.  The problem was what to do with the bones after the party.  We put them into the furnace and shut it down, sending smoke all over the place.  We also build a huge four-poster bed and took pictures
  • Wishing Well:  We were not allowed to sell drinks at the party.  I think the drinking age back then was 21.  So we had a Wishing Well.  You made a wish (it was either 25 or 35 cents (I believe the latter) and asked for the drink you wanted. Mixed drinks or beer.  Beer might have been a different price.
  • Dating Service: Remember this was well before there were computerized dating services.  As Social Chairman I had contacts with the various social chairmen at Emerson, BU, BC etc.  I don't think this was my idea; I believe it had been going on for a few years.  Anyway, we'd get a list of the folks who wanted a date.  (age, height, religion, dating experience) and would work the phones.  We had as many as 100 fix-ups at one of the parties
  • Blackout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_1965 The blackout was November 9th and initially no one knew what was going on. I was on house committee and remember being posted at the front door to ensure that unwelcome guests did not come in.
  • Baker House, back then, was all men.  And we had parietal hours.  Someone can help me with the times, but girls were allowed (more or less)

M-Th 4-10
Fri 4-12
Sat 12-12
Sun 12-10

This was monitored by the Judicial Committee which, at least the year I remember, was run by an ex green beret (or something like that) who came to MIT after some Vietnam service.

  • Of course there were no cell phones.  We had a phone booth in the center of each floor (maybe there were two) and we shared them.  So a group of us signed up for service and put a phone on a 100' cord to service the 4th floor (and maybe one other) centered in 446.  There was also someone in the dorm who figured out the tones to make free calls.  I think that for a while Harry Otoguro called Hawaii every day
  • Our resident genius was Craig Fields.  He and I, as Freshmen, had 442 and 443, the only freshmen with singles.  Craig later on ran DARPA.  There are lots of Craig stories
  • It is interesting that there are a large group of friends who met their future spouses while in Baker house, got married between 1967 and 1969, and who now are still married to the same person after 40 or more years.  From my circle of friends this included

Joel Shwimer (met Elaine at a mixer on my birthday)
Jeff Wiesen
Stan Rose
Ed Geltman
Harvey Newman (I fixed him up)

 

 

The wishing well

  John Rudy's comment about the wishing well (I remember the drinks costing 50 cents) reminds me of a related story.
Selling booze at parties was always a problem because the dorm did not, of course, have a liquor license.  Drinking age then was 21 but somehow nobody seemed concerned that most of the people attending our parties were minors.  The concern was always selling.
Dean Wadleigh got involved in this matter before the wishing well.  He didn't like us selling drinks but he also recognized that there would be less drunkenness if we sold drinks as opposed to having an open bar.  He asked the Baker House Social Committee to propose a solution.
Our first solution was that we would sell drink tickets outside the party.  You bought the tickets outside the party and exchanged them for drinks.  When this solution was proposed to Wadleigh he commemted, "That sounds like a chitty system."
I think the wishing well evolved from the chits proposal.

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