Tag Archives: Narrative Folklore

Softball Injury (Rick Gangopadhyay)

Title: Softball Injury

General Information about Item:

Legend, workplace folklore
Language: English
Country of Origin: United States
Informant: Informant #7
Date Collected: February 20, 2018.

Informant Data:

FO+M Custodian and has been working for college for three years. Has been part of the custodial department the entirety of his time at Dartmouth. Originally from Connecticut and moved to the Upper Valley area.

Contextual Data:

Some of the members of the custodial department sometimes meet to play softball in their free time. The last time this occurred was three years ago as far as the informant is aware. This is due to problems that ensued during the game that was played on this occasion. The story describes the informant’s experience at the softball game and an accident that occurred.

Item:

- The custodian is at the casually organized softball game among other custodians and his team is up at bat. Another custodian winds up to hit the ball and hits it as hard as he can. The ball flies directly into the ribcage of another custodial worker on the other team and he has to go to the hospital. As it turned out, the victim was okay but suffered a cracked rib cage.

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

Transcript:

“I can’t say I’m all that good at softball or other ball sports… When Jim hit that ball though I almost threw up myself, he hit it into the man- I didn’t know his name – and it looked pretty darn painful! I’ve been telling this to some of the new guys and they think it’s a shame we stopped doing it.”

Collector’s Comments:

I used to play in casual soccer games when I was a kid and whenever someone got hurt, everyone would often stop playing altogether. It seems like this doesn’t stop as we get older.

Collector’s Name: Rick Gangopadhyay

Tags/Keywords:

Legend
FO+M
Narrative Folklore

Water Balloon Legend (Rick Gangopadhyay)

Title: Water Balloon Legend

General Information about Item:

Legend, workplace folklore
Language: English
Country of Origin: United States
Informant: Informant #6
Date Collected: February 23, 2018

Informant Data:

Has been working for the custodial sector of FO+M for over five years. Is originally from Manchester, New Hampshire but more recently moved to the Upper Valley.

Contextual Data:

A story that has been passed down to her from her boss who heard it from her boss. The story takes place in 2007 and the story has been told by her boss that the story is true. The story describes the experience one custodian had one afternoon when he walked up to the third floor of Topliff.

Item:

- This custodian walks into his assigned dormitory, which he was assigned that day. Walking up to the third floor, he hears loud yelling and the sound of splashing water. Entering the floor, he finds that there is a water balloon fight going on in the third-floor hallway with the walls soaked as well as the floors. Students escape through the fire escape and the custodian cannot catch a glimpse of them of whether they live on the floor. No one was ever found accountable for the incident.

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

Transcript:

“I can’t complain these days about students, they’ve been great to me. This story I told you though makes me wonder what got into those kids. To be honest though, I probably would have joined in if I were one of the students.”

Collector’s Comments:

I’ve seen custodians deal with a lot of cases of disregard for the dorms we live in. It’s amazing to me how much work they put in. I myself have never heard of the water balloon story but it does not surprise me at all.

Collector’s Name: Rick Gangopadhyay

Tags/Keywords:

Legend
FO+M
Narrative Folklore

Dorm Horse Legend (Jacob Cruger)

Title: Dorm Horse Legend

General Information About this Item:

Legend, workplace folklore
Language: English
Country of Origin: United States
Informant: Informant #3
Date Collected: 2/20/2018

Informant Data:

FO+M worker, started working for the college over 30 years ago. Has worked in multiple FO+M divisions. Originally from the Upper Valley, the child of a former FO+M employee.

Contextual Data:

One of many stories passed to informant by older FO+M employees. Takes place “way before 1975,” between ten to twenty years before the informant started working for the college. The informant was told this story is true. The story describes an experience of a custodian assigned to an undergraduate dorm. The story takes place prior to coeducation, so all of the students involved in the story are male. It also takes place prior to major changes to dorms on campus, which means whoever brought the horse up the stairs didn’t have to deal with obstacles like smoke doors.

Item:

A custodian for Wheeler hall walks into the building and hears a clomping sound coming from above him. Goes up to the fourth floor and finds a horse and buggy. Knowing horses will go up stairs but not down stairs, the custodian gathers a group to help him get the horse down the stairs.

Transcript:

“Now, I have no proof of this, but here’s one from way way back… he [a custodian for Wheeler Hall] came in and he could hear this ‘clomp clomp clomp, clomp clomp clomp.’ And he goes up to the fourth floor and there’s a horse and buggy. And all he could do is laugh… because he knew the horse would go up the stairs, but it won’t go down the stairs… so he had all the guys get together and get around the horse and they had to blindfold the horse to try to get it down the stairs. I don’t know where the horse actually came from”

Collector’s Comments:

This legend reminds me of similar stories I heard growing up, including a story about a student at a local high school student bringing a cow up the stairs of the school and struggling to get it back down. Perhaps large animals being brought into buildings and being unable to get back down stairs is a common practical joke.

Collector’s Name: Jacob Cruger

Tags/Keywords:

Legend
Narrative Folklore
FO+M