Freshman Year
Winter 1963-64

When Bob Dylan came to the campus on Prince-Tiger weekend, Steve Oxman and Dick Erdman got themselves in the news by asserting that one of their former high-school classmates wrote “Blowing in the Wind” and that after he sold the song to Dylan, the folksinger took credit for writing it himself. The truth of the matter was never determined, but the dispute hardly spoiled the success of the class’s first big Princeton weekend: The dance was wild, the game was a 27-7 victory over Yale and the concert was a sellout.

November 22, 1963 was a bitter shock for everyone and left all our emotions a jumble. It seemed so far away and impossible, and as we pieced together what we gathered from the television and radio and thought it through again and again and again, we felt hollow inside. The Princetonian summed up best what we all felt: “We mourn for a man. We mourn for a nation. We confront ourselves in shock and uncertainty for a future without the President whom we had chosen to lead us into it. Whatever we were yesterday, today we are first of all Americans. Whatever we were, we are now together. The faith this nation invested in John F. Kennedy is perhaps more strongly felt now than at any other time in the past. The loss to each of us is personal, unuttered for want of words.”

But even the President’s death could suspend time only momentarily, and fall moved into winter. Thanksgiving weekend the football team lost to Dartmouth by a mere point, 22-21, and suddenly the season and illusions of an Ivy title were all over.

In December, 26 classmates threw their hats into the political ring and ran for class office. Jack Seaquist emerged the victor and was followed by Terry Whipple and Steve Oxman. Time proved that the class had made a startlingly good choice on its very first try. The three dominated the class officer spots for the next three and a half years, and by graduation each one had served at least one term as class president. Soon after the election the administration presented the trio with its first problem by banning the lake party traditionally held the weekend of Frosh Prom. They hit upon the idea of a stadium party instead, and the weekend turned out to be a complete success.

The winter was long and cold, but once in a while there was some relief. Right before exams a tremendous snowball fight broke out near Upper Eagle between the freshmen and sophomores, and the proctors had to descend en masse to break it up. They seized 90 U-Store cards, but not a single person got into serious trouble. Academic justice was more severe, however, and after the results were in, seven freshmen packed their bags and departed.

The winter ski season led to the first official alteration of the “car rule” to allow “skiers” recovering from their lack of prowess to get around campus. Golf carts, first used by Kit Roland, have since become commonplace for injured skiers.

© 1997 by The Class of 1967, Princeton University. Reprinted from the 1967 Nassau Herald.