Tufts

Tufts had a spectacular campus: the cluster of original buildings were more than a hundred years old in 1967. They rested on a huge mound formed by the movement of glaciers in the area 10,000 years before (we called Tufts "the dump on the hump" when exceeding pissed off at the school or just to be cynical - a constant endeavor). Anyway, our tour continues: immense deciduous trees grew around and between the original buildings, and in the fall this part of campus had the amazing red, orange and yellow foliage accurately associated with New England before the snow arrives. Ivy? That insidious, but beautiful vine was everywhere. It was quite the background in the autumn, and a number of films, TV shows and commercials used Tufts as the focal point of their productions during the time I was a student there. I'm embarrassed to say, no one invited me to be an extra.

Tufts had bought lots of land in the area straddling Medford and Somerville in the 1850s, and had always had the luxury of expanding how and when it chose to. Because of this, there was some consistency in the structures on campus. The University President's House was a huge Colonial home located on the slope mid way down the Hill, not two hundred yard from his office in the Administration building. Fraternity Row was 100 yards further on. By anyone's standards, these large wooden houses, adorned with the Greek letters members pledged to, were impressive. More so were the houses on the next street - Professor's Row. If you want to keep good profs, offer them nice digs, and these mini-mansions were good enough to keep tenured heads and assistant heads of Departments satisfied and settled.

As the land flattened out and you moved off the official campus, the University owned probably 75 or more small houses. Some were used as special interest student dwellings; some were rental homes for married students; some were rented to the neighborhood at a reduced rate. Beyond that was a diminishing strip of land allocated for future development. Tufts' Graduate Schools - Medical, Dental and Veterinary - were located in Downtown Boston.

Residential Halls were found back up the hill. Jackson College - the Women's College, under the umbrella of Tufts University (the school was completely co-ed in all other ways) - was at a lower point on the hill than Tufts College (reflective of the time Jackson was established and the status of women at that point). Jackson had a poorly formed, functionless quad. Perhaps in days gone by, completely, utterly clothed women played miniature croquet there, but other than that, it was ten jumps across on a day you didn't eat your Wheaties. Jackson had newer dorms than Tufts College - nice, bright, modern structures. Consistent architecturally. Absolutely inconsistent, and not seen, from central campus.

The quad I lived next to was big and inviting. Two of the dorms around it, fortunately also invisible to those on main campus, were Soviet-style, efficiency first boxes, with bleak, cinder block walls and linoleum floors. Who wants to vomit on linoleum? And we did a lot of drunk vomiting my first year in a dorm. If you lived in Miller or Houston Hall, you gazed down the Quad at the school's dowager, Carmichael - regal, ancient, inefficient, drafty, noisy, with wood floors and small, leaky johns - it's where everyone wanted to live. It had a spire, which you could reach if you knew hidden passage ways and an obscured ceiling panel, and if you could lift yourself up to the widow's walk at its peak, which provided a grand view of the neighborhood, and of Boston on a clear day.

It was a great place from which to watch activities on the quad, which was constantly filled with students, who constant movement scraped deep walkways in the grass, which was not as well attended to as grass patches are today. There were no Hispanic day laborers then - no hard working illegals - hired at the lowest possible price to keep the University pristine. There were Frisbees and heated discussions; drinking and, later, dope smoking; tanning and posing; milling about and determined striding. Twice a year there were epic football games on the Quad - the Ice Bowl, before Christmas, and the Mud Bowl, usually in early April. They were brutal and intense. You were more likely to get hurt in the Ice Bowl than a Varsity Football player was in the course of a season.

I played in both bowls my Freshman Year, but was a way too cool drug freak to play in them after that.

It's hard to imagine that is more than 40 years ago, and that Tufts is likely a different place now (let's hope Miller and Houston are gone). My last days on campus were not my best. Reality finally caught me, but I wasn't ready to make reality my companion, so it was exit - stage left. I always thought I'd be back to Tufts and Boston "when I got my shit together." Time passed slowly after I left. I saw the campus past midnight in 1972, but have not been been in Massachusetts since then.

I miss it enough to go back. I know you can't go home again, but I'm constantly trying, so why not there? Neil Young wrote "all my changes were there (Canada)." All my changes were at Tufts. That's worth a second look.