Category Archives: Other

Robert Frost’s Ashes

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General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Malcolm Robinson
  • Date Collected: This data was collected during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Malcolm Robinson on October 28th, 2018.

Informant Data:

  • Malcolm Robinson ‘22 is a male student studying Russian Area Studies and Geography at Dartmouth College. He is originally from London. Malcolm participated in a canoeing trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program. He has 2 older brothers (Austin Robinson ‘19 and Gordon Robinson 21′), who attend Dartmouth, but Trips were his first true introduction to life as a Dartmouth student.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
  • Malcolm encountered this joke, which is not specific to the canoeing section of trips and is actually quite common, when he was a tripee during August of 2017.
  • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
  • This joke occurs on first year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

  • During First Year Trips each year, Trip leaders will carry a bag that they claim is filled with the ashes of Robert Frost. This is supposedly to scatter them in the College Grant, the wilderness area where trip sections go as Frost wrote extensively on the beauty of the rugged New England landscape.  Eventually, they will choose a place that was allegedly meaningful to Frost to scatter these ashes. At this point, they will reveal that the ashes are actually chocolate powder and proceed to make hot chocolate for the group.

 

Transcript:

  • Gordon: Hi Malcolm, hope you’re doing well,  could you talk a little bit about yourself?
  • Malcolm: Yeah, so I’m Malcolm Robinson, I’m a 22 at Dartmouth College and I’m here with my brother Gordon Robinson. He’s gonna ask me some questions.
  • Gordon: Great, so let’s talk a little bit about jokes or pranks they played on your trip. Could you give an example of any jokes from your trip?
  • Malcolm: My first-year trip was awesome, I had a great time and they played a lot of jokes. For example one point during the trip, they told us that it was a Dartmouth tradition because Robert Frost was an alum we had to spread his ashes around the College Grant. It turns out that those were not Frost’s ashes, it was pretty funny.
  • Gordon: How did you figure it out?
  • Malcolm: It was pretty obvious when someone in the group figured it out. At the start, many genuinely believed that those were Robert Frost’s ashes.
  • Gordon: Alright, great! Thanks.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Informant’s Comments:

  • “They [the trip leaders] had some people convinced until we saw the bag. I think that this brought us closer as a group, and made me reflect on the beauty of the wilderness.”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

  • This prank plays off the trippees desire to participate in an experience that they believe is shared by the wider campus. It also shows them how they are part of a wider Dartmouth community of current students and alumni.

Collector’s Name: Gordon Robinson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth.

Clam’s Clammy Situations

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General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Verbal Folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of origin: USA

Informant Data: Kyle Clampitt is a member of the Class of 2020. He is a 19-year-old male and member of the Dartmouth Men’s Lacrosse Team. Kyle is from Bloomsbury, New Jersey and has played both lacrosse and soccer since his youth. His leadership made him a captain of both the soccer team and lacrosse teams during his high school career. Kyle is a current defenseman for the Big Green wearing the number 38.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: Clam’s Clammy Situation, while funny, represents the social guidelines for Dartmouth Men’s Lacrosse Team. Since a big part of the college is balancing commitments with classes, social life and the team, sticking together as a unit on the weekends away from the field, helps to keep social situations in control. Sometimes unexpected situations happen and the social rule book helps to make them less stressful by remembering these simple guidelines

Cultural Context: Clam’s Clammy Situation has become the guideline for how to handle any sticky situation the Dartmouth Men’s Lacrosse Team or player may find themselves in over the course of the year.  Clam’s Clammy Situations has claimed the verbal mantra of “focus, have fun, stick together, and if you have a sticky situation, remain as a team.  If you need help, look to an upper classman for help and suggestions.” While written by Clampitt himself, he took his own personal experiences as well as past experiences from other teammates on the team and created a book to help future teammates avoid troubling situations. The book is kept in Clampitt’s locker and is referenced to a player if he experiences a problem with social life away from the lacrosse field so he can read the book and then learn from the situation.

Item: This image of Clam’s Clammy situation is a customary guideline to assist Men’s Lacrosse players in how to handle unexpected or sticky situations that may arise on weekends. The goal is to avoid them at every cost. If the team cannot, this guideline has become the customary guide to resolve the sticky situation the player may find himself in. The informant relays these terms verbally from the book to members of the team on weekends when we are away from the lacrosse field for a night. Lastly, it is a ritual that every season a player on the team writes a book and shares his past experiences to the team from problematic situations he learned from. 

Associated media

Informant’s Comments: The informant shared that Clam’s Clammy situation is especially helpful for incoming freshman who have not yet experienced Dartmouth’s social culture and weekend events like Winter Carnival.

 Collector’s Comments:

  • Clam’s Clammy Situations has become a new verbal folklore for Dartmouth’s Men’s Lacrosse Team over the last year. These verbal folklore rules help to set social expectations starting in the Fall and should be maintained always. They are a good reminder of what you do not want to happen while at Dartmouth
  • The informant noted that Clam’s Clammy has been helpful to know the social rules and expectation at Dartmouth and not put yourself or any teammate in a bad situation. Getting yourself or the team in trouble is not worth it. The simple rule is, avoid trouble at all times and stick together on weekends as a team.
  • Before Clam’s Clammy Situation the book was called Key’s Keys to Success which was written by a senior at the time who now is a graduate. This book also showed past experiences that Key was in and then learned from them.
  • Overall, these books are written each season and shared to the team over the summer going into the next season so students on the team can learn about how to respond from situations whether it be socially, in the classroom, or the lacrosse field.

Collector’s Name: Parker/Westy

Tags/Keywords: Dartmouth Men’s Lacrosse, Avoid Trouble, Clam’s Clammy Situations, Verbal

Last Man Standing

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General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Customary Folklore (superstition)
  • Language: English
  • Country of origin: USA

Informant Data: Mike Connolly is a member of the 2021 class from Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is a 19-year-old male on the Men’s Lacrosse team. Mike is a midfielder on the team and brother to two older boys who played lacrosse and football here at Dartmouth.

Contextual Data:

Social Context:  The Last Man Standing is a paintball game activity Men’s lacrosse team partakes in each preseason. This offsite bonding is central to be to expanding enhancing team bonds in an area that does not involve field play but still involves great agility and endurance.  This ritual of rugged, toughness and secret attacks is a social ice breaker especially for freshman players as they begin to bond within their new team.

Cultural Context: The Last Man Standing paintball competition allows for all players to place themselves in an equal and level setting without lacrosse gear or a field involved. It received its coined name from social media posts. This woods ritual represents we are one unit in all we do, but it also allows for individual quickness and mobility without being tested on performance. The culture is one hiding your best inner hunting and warrior talents. The Last Man Standing signifies the last man to not be hit with a paintball remains the ultimate winner, and is honored by the team for perhaps thirty seconds. When the fame is over, the laughter, back slapping in congratulatory manner brings the team to a new level of bonding that they may not had experienced in preseason. The added cultural experiences become an ice breaker for the season. The lacrosse team is a group that takes pride in rising to challenges wherever they may find themselves. The Last Man Standing paintball game experience it one that players form memories that stands out from the daily routine of field practice and weight room training.

Item: This image represents Men’s Lacrosse after team bonding ritual of paint ball competition at AG paint. It depicts camaraderie of the team off the field. The informant stated that he loves going paintballing and early on he would not be able to hit many people because his hands would be too sweaty from nerves. He then proceeded to rub dirt in his hands before every single time he went paintballing. This is a superstition that our informant has and he stated he does it before every single paintball game to help him have better control of his gun. If A then B, if our informant rubs dirt in his hands, the gun doesn’t slip and he shoots well.

Associated media:

Informant’s Comments: The informant’s experience in the paintball game coined, Last Man Standing was a great fall preseason bonding experience. It allowed new players to form a bond with all the members on the team, including the coaches at an off-campus environment and away from the lacrosse field.

Collector’s Comments:

  • The paint ball game that has been given the name, Last Man Standing is customary in that each fall preseason it provides for new bonding experiences especially for the new players on the team to find inclusion.
  • The informant found that this team bonding experience with players and coaches offered a form of performance that allowed for different skills sets to be displayed that was not measured by a unique skill set not found on a field.

Collector’s Name: Parker Joyce

Tags/Keywords: Dartmouth Men’s Lacrosse, Paintball Game, Last Man Standing. Customary

Fall into Shape

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General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Customary Folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of origin: USA

Informant Data: Matt Erfle is a member of the Class of 2021. He is a 19 year old male and member of the Dartmouth Men’s Lacrosse Team. Matt is from West Chester, Pennsylvania and has played both lacrosse and football since his youth. He told us that he began training over the summer by looking at the Dartmouth Training Packet the Coaches sent out in June to help prepare him for when he got to campus in the fall. To this day, Matt is one of the more fit guys on the team and it’s because he started following the training packet closely and put great importance on discipline through fitness.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: Fall into Shape involves commitment to following a structured and discipline physical fitness program. As many team members share regional hometown locations, bonding within local communities builds a strong bond during fall preseason workouts. Dartmouth team members support each other in huddles, on the end line while running sprints, line drills and overall grunts and cheers as workouts takes the team through endurance stamina.  After each practice, teammates continue bondage through locker room talks, shared meals and campus walks.

Cultural Context: The Dartmouth Men’s Lacrosse Team represents we are one unit in all we do. The culture is one of extreme endurance, sweat, pain and push to the limit. If unable to achieve the limit, perhaps by some teammates perseverance is everything and team members and coaches are the anchors of support for each individual. The lacrosse team is a group of men that mentor each other, fall with each other and rise to the challenges that their coaches place in front of them of the better of the unit, no the better of the individual. While each individual has personal goals, in the end they are shared for bonding and creating an atmosphere of champions. The team spends most of their time together on and off the field. Their objective is to take one season at a time, one run beep test at a time and falling into shape over the season is about one practice at time to better our unit each day.

Item: This Instagram video represents an opening day in Fall into Shape training during preseason and the endurance and commitment each team member displays. The video is part of the season history posted by coaches for players and followers alike. The running program is seen as a ritual to the program because each year the coaches place heavy emphasis on getting into shape. If A then B is seen because if you follow the training packet and are disciplined with your running, then you will pass the tests and be in good shape.

 

 

 

Associated media:

 

Informant’s Comments: The informant stressed the importance of fall preseason as laid the ground work for the expectations of in season to follow. As a freshman, it helped that the returning guided the new players on expectations.

 Collector’s Comments:

  • Fall into Shape is customary in that each fall preseason sets the stage for the next day. As each day passes, soon a week has passed and then a month. With each passing period, the team is better for each day of the grind.
  • The informant noted that when starting on first day of preseason with the beep run test, the anticipated stress of passing the test, was more stressful than the test itself.  While passing the test is a relief, knowing you are not alone helps.
  • The informant also stated it’s the guys around him while running the sprints that keep him moving in the right direction.

Collector’s Name: Parker Joyce

Tags/Keywords: Dartmouth Men’s Lacrosse, Fall into Shape. Customary Folklore (rituals)

Wayne’s World Joke (Jacob Cruger)

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Title: Wayne’s World Joke

General Information About this Item:

  • Joke, workplace folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Informant #1
  • Date Collected: 3/9/2018

Informant Data:

  • The informant is a Facilities, Operations, and Management Engineering Services employee who is not originally from the Upper Valley region.

Contextual Data:

  • This story dates back to when the Class of 1953 Commons (the main dining hall on campus) was still known as Thayer Dining.

Item:

  • Back before the ’53 Commons existed the same building was called Thayer Dining. The building had a long-serving maintenance employee with an office on the building’s upper level. This office was infamously messy, full of parts and equipment the employee saved over the years. It was such a distinctive office it received its own nickname: “Wayne’s World.” This name continues to be a joke recognized by some Facilities, Operations, and Management employees.

Collector’s Name: Jacob Cruger

Transcript:

  • “Before ’53 Commons was completed… the building that was there before was just called Thayer Dining. It was the same old building from the outside and the maintenance man in Thayer Dining… had his own space in sort of the attic… he tended to collect parts and pieces of equipment and he would collect them in case he ever needed them in the future. And you can imagine what that place looked like, you know he was here for like thirty five years or something. So it was termed, his name was Wayne I can’t remember his last name, so it was a ‘Wayne’s World.’ So everyone, if you say ‘Wayne’s World,’ around here, everyone will know ‘oh yeah Wayne’s World.'”

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke
  • FO+M

Image Credit

The Stick Slap

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Title: The Stick Slap

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore, Ritual
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Megan Cornell
  • Date Collected: 2-22-18

Informant Data:

  • Meg Cornell is an 18 year old freshman defenseman on the Dartmouth College women’s hockey team. She is from Bloomington, Minnesota and is currently undecided on her major. Meg started playing hockey when she was six years old and hasn’t looked back since. Meg is the youngest in her family and has two older brothers.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: This ritual was not bequested nor handed down to Meg and Linda. They began this ritual on their own, and thus the origin of the ritual traces back to this past season (2017-2018). Meg and Linda enjoy this ritual between each other, and believe that it instills a confidence within them to perform their very best.
  • Social Context: Before every game before the first period begins, the entire team get into a huddle by the net. In the pregame huddle before her teammate Alyssa Baker joins, Linda and Meg stand next to each other. First Linda slaps Meg’s stick, then Meg slap her stick, then Linda slaps Meg’s stick–it gets pretty aggressive! Meg is not exactly sure how or why this ritual started, but they kept it up all season.

Item:

  • The pregame stick slap ritual was not bequested to either of them, but they just began doing it spontaneously on their own and ultimately became a ritual between them. They definitely plan on keeping up this ritual for the next three years and maybe will bequest it to two other players at the culmination of their senior year. This ritual gets them ‘pumped up’ and ready to go for the game!

Meg and Linda are next to each other in the huddle, slapping each other’s sticks a few times

Transcript:

  • “Yeah, so Linda and I just kind of started slapping each other’s sticks in the huddle before games–honestly it gets pretty aggressive! We definitely have a lot of fun with it. I’m not sure if we will pass this down to younger teammates, but Linda and I will definitely keep doing this for the next three years.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • Like I said, the stick slapping can get pretty aggressive ,so you need to make sure you have your feet (or skates) under you!

Collector’s Comments:

  • Meg was interviewed by Sarah Tabeek in downstairs Collis on a friday afternoon. Webpage published by Sarah Tabeek.

Collector’s Name: Sarah Tabeek

Tags/Keywords:

  • Customary Lore
  • Ritual
  • Stick Slap

 

Secret Societies Tradition (Jacob Cruger)

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Title: Secret Societies Tradition

General Information About this Item:

  • Tradition, workplace folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Informant #1
  • Date Collected: 3/8/2018

Informant Data:

  • The informant is a Facilities, Operations, and Management  Engineering Services employee who is not originally from the Upper Valley region.

Contextual Data:

  • This piece of folklore describes an unwritten practice of custodial employees called upon to address issues in the facilities of Dartmouth’s secret societies. The informant did not know the origin of this particular tradition.

Item:

  • Facilities, Operations and Management employees sometimes enter the facilities of Dartmouth’s secret societies for maintenance and safety reasons. For those who do these jobs there’s an unwritten rule of respect – even when asked about them by their coworkers, the employees won’t reveal what they’ve seen.

Collector Comments:

The intersection of workplace folklore (this item) with student folklore (senior societies and associated traditions) is interesting. This trend can be observed in several other items of folklore collected for this project.

Collector’s Name: Jacob Cruger

Tags/Keywords:

  • Traditions
  • FO+M

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“Smooth Dinners”

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Title: Smooth Dinners

General Information About this Item:

  • Ritual or Tradition
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant Number: 12
  • Date Collected: 2/23/18

Informant Data:

  • High level manager within DDS. Has been at Dartmouth for nearly 40 years and has worked with the areas today known as the Hop, Collis Cafe, and 53’ Commons.

Contextual Data:

  • Tradition that as far back as the informant had been at Dartmouth.  Tradition can date back to even prior to his time at Dartmouth and was looked forward to by nearly all students on campus.

Item:

  • Customary Lore, each year on the Friday before Winter Carnival, (at the time) Thayer Dining Hall would host Steak Night.  The attendees would be required to wear nice dress and could bring dates to the dining hall in order to have a luxurious steak and seafood dinner.  Called “Smooth Dinner” because of the dress of the participants and the nature of the food that was served that night.

Transcript:

” An interesting tradition known as ‘Smooth Dinners’ where we would serve steak and lobster on the Friday before Winter Carnival”

Informant’s Comments:

This tradition would later form into the steak and lobster dinner served to seniors during senior week.  Then this tradition would transform into what we know now as the First-Year and athlete steak and lobster dinner served during matriculation.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Clear example of Customary Lore
  • A ritual that has been practiced for a prolonged period of time.
  • We could call this a Dartmouth culinary rite or a Transformative Dartmouth Tradition for the way that it has changed, yet remained the same over the years.

Collector’s Name: C. Ross Wood

Tags/Keywords:

  • Tradition, Ritual
  • Customary Folklore
  • DDS

Miley Cyrus – “Party in the U.S.A.”

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General Information about Item:

  • Music Folklore – Song
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Ziqi Wang
  • Date Collected: 02-23-2018

Informant Data:

  • Ziqi Wang is a male student in the Dartmouth College Class of 2018.  He was born in China and emigrated to the United States when he was 9 years old; he has spent most of his life in the Hanover, NH area, having attended Hanover High School. He studies economics and environmental science at Dartmouth, and intends to pursue a career in business in Boston, MA after graduation. Ziqi has been an active member of Dartmouth’s Club Swim Team since the fall of 2014.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: In order to bolster team spirit and unity, the Dartmouth Club Swim Team has a variety of fun traditions which engage the members in play. This particular ritual has the members of the team sing an adolescent pop song, which has ironically gained fame with the college community, allowing the team to mutually engage in an absurd, almost child-like song. This bonding through humor and adolescent fun helps to solidify the team.
  • Social Context: This musical tradition was explained in a one-on-one interview with the informant at Baker-Berry Library. It is performed before meets, allowing team members to channel any anxiety they may be feeling into a care-free, child-like exercise, relaxing them.

Item:

  • Before meets, members of the Dartmouth Club Swim Team get together to sing Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the U.S.A.”

Music Video for “Party in the U.S.A.”:

Transcript:

  • “Before meets, people like to sing this Miley Cyrus song – ‘Party in the U.S.A.’ I forgot exactly how it goes, but it’s a fun, easy way for people to shake off the nerves. They know like, maybe half of the lyrics. It’s such a silly song.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • “It’s a great song, I love it.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • This song is quite catchy

Collector’s Name: Ashwath Srikanth

Tags/Keywords: Music Folklore, Ritual, Miley Cyrus, Swimming

Dots Halloween Tradition (Jacob Cruger)

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Title: Dots Halloween Tradition

General Information About this Item:

  • Tradition, workplace folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Informant #4
  • Date Collected: 3/9/2018

Informant Data:

  • The informant is an FO+M student employee who works in Hinman Mail Services. He is also a Dartmouth student in the class of 2021 hailing from Western Massachusetts. He is involved with a variety of activities across campus and considering majoring in mathematics.

Contextual Data:

  • Hinman Mail Services decorates the area around the window every halloween. This year the informant was part of a group that started what he hopes is a new tradition governing the types of decorations adorning the window.

Item:

  • The informant considers Dots to be the “scariest” halloween candy because he considers them to be terrible. Thus, he and his coworkers decorated the area around the window with Dots boxes to add a new, possibly frightening, element to the Hinman window’s halloween decor.

Transcript:

  • “A tradition that we started this year, that I intend on carrying into the next year and subsequent years. At halloween we started decorating the window, just like putting out your standard like halloween decorations, and one of my coworkers and I decided that it wasn’t scary enough so we thought ‘what’s the scariest part of halloween’ and so naturally that was dots because they’re just terrible. So we just started taping dots just all around the window, and that’s something I’m planning on continuing.”

Collector’s Name: Jacob Cruger

Tags/Keywords:

  • Tradition
  • FO+M

Image Credit