Dartmouth College
Hanover, New HampshireThursday - April 11
Dear Pat,
If my handwriting proves shakey [sic] throughout, it has good cause. Mr. A. F. Harris, reporter of no little renown at the Gazette & Daily, wandered in last afternoon, querying whether it would be in any way possible to lure me into a few hours of 'gin & tonics' (I have become a notorious abstainer, grind, and all-round hypocrite since my return to higher learning). I consented only with the understanding that we would drink 'til 6:00 P.M., at which time I would be free to pass out, so that I could awaken early and study; so drink we did, pass out I did (at 7:15, a bit late), and here it is 3:30 A.M., conscious once more with a faint tinge of nausea running through the veins.
Received your letter only yesterday, and did want to return it promptly, since Holyoke, with unerring accuracy, happened to cho[o]se the only weekend this spring for which I have any plans for it's Junior Proms (good sentence). So happens that myself and two other fraternity brothers have tickets for The Iceman Cometh that Friday night, and The Threepenny Opera Saturday night, and plan to make an aesthetic weekend of it. May come up with two tickets to My Fair Lady for the Saturday matinee (the third boy doesn't care to spend the $20 or $25 they will coast). I've seen it already, over Christmas, but would to like [sic] catch it again before Rex H. leaves. Anyway, just everyone has seen it once, so I'll have to see it twice in order to be just horribly blasé and a big phony.
It's probably just as well that I can't make it, since I'm losing all my hair and all your schoolmates would think you brought your father to the Prom. (or isn't he bald?)
Have heard that you are, as usual, immersing yourself in work, study, and good deeds; I am continually amazed, and no little horrified, at your energy. I have chosen, rather, the life of an anchorite, and sit here in my room off-campus, reading incessantly; conjuring up ethereal spirits and visions of God with the help of a blue light and incense; and stick pins into rag dolls. Actually, it [is] not as grand as all that; I've merely become a grind (A's are flying all over the place) and hope some day to die and go to the Martin Memorial Library.
Thanks again for the most kind invitation. I do hope that some weekend in May I can get down to Holyoke and hear the sordid details of your life in the first person.
Love, Rod
P.S.: "Second Birthday" really wasn't written by a student, but actually composed by a dormitory janitor who got the inspiration early one morning while mopping up a lavatory in which a student had been deathly ill the night before.