Michiganensian. [1910]

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_ [ ahle NINETEENg-TEN MICHIGANENSIAN [] U
[ Then next came the nights we sneaked out to catch sophs. It took courage, [
but who would be willing to go home and not have a good true story about the m
m Fresh-Soph scraps we participated in.
Do you remember how we felt when we first saw we were spending our allowances faster than they were coming in and found ourselves broke? Not until
then were we duly initiated college men. (If you are still in good standing you are
[ probably still broke.)
What did your landlady say the first time you let your rent run a week over i
i time?-You need not tell me, mine said the same. Say, do you remember, too,
[ that she said the rooms would be kept warm? Did she do it? Mine forgot it with m
the first frost.
Open your scrap book and turn back to those first pages. You find the
crown cut from your Freshman cap. It was with the air of a king you walked home
from State street wearing that cap the day you bought it. That was an identificag tion mark that told the whole world you were a student in the University of Mich- [
igan, what matter if only a Freshman? [ ]
How our pride swells when we think of the Fresh-Soph rush and the pictures i
Lyndon took of the crowd afterward. How you tried to get in the front row and, E
[ if you did not think you looked tough enough, you tore your shirt (if you had any
left) a little more and put a little more mud on your face. Honestly, just how many
r of those pictures did you send away to be admired?
Things went along pretty well while Football season was on. It did not take
^ long to learn the songs and yells (especially that Ypsi yell). We entered into the
] spirit of things and care-free and happy we went through the weekly routine. [
Christmas came; we went home to see the folks. We bought the usual Michigan i
suit case label which Freshmen buy. We stuck it on our suit cases so everybody
might see it. Perhaps we turned our trousers up just a little higher than we wore
[ them around the campus. You see we had to come up to the expectations of those
ro at home who had only seen the poster pictures of "College Life."
rg It was not long from January until the end of the semester. We never will R
[ forget those first conditions. How many did you get? Really should not have had [
[f any, but, "who wants to go through college and make Phi Beta Kappa?" We [
H know better now, of course, and it was probably that first condition that has kept [
[ us in the University the remaining three years and a half. To the fellows we joked i
about it and told them all about how perfectly "lovely" (used advisedly) the professor was who "stung" us. And yet, honestly, did we not feel a little ashamed of
m ourselves when we were alone in our rooms, writing to father and mother and telling
them we failed in one, two, or three, etc., courses? Then we decided we had been
on the artificial side of "College." I believe that was really the time we entered
upon our "College Life;" then we began to realize why father and mother were so ]
i anxious for us to come to college. Didn't we brace up? And say, did not the i
it letter we received from the secretary of the department after we had gone home in i
r June saying we had successfully passed all the courses we took the second semester
repay us for that extra brace we took, and was there not a lot of satisfaction in
telling our little brothers and sisters that those posters we brought home illustrating
S "College Life" were probably the best cartoons obtainable?
[] Never will we forget that night of all nights, "Cap Night." That was the
[ great event of the year. We had been working all year for it.-For the time when [
we would no longer be freshmen, but sophomores. Somehow after wearing that i
i little grey cap through the year we had become attached to it. It had won a place i
[ in our hearts and we sighed at the thought that we were to cast it into the big fire
[ and watch it, together with many others, disappear into smoke and ashes. It was
a sad parting. We were proud to be sophomores, yet we wanted that cap for
[1971