Editor’s note: One of the many changes we witnessed as members of both the Class and Generation of 1968 was a complete overhaul of the social environment of Williams College. Future treatment(s) will delve into Jack Sawyer’s influence on the process; here we focus on how it felt to be half-in, or half-out of the […]
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We gotta get out of this place
“If it’s the Last Thing We EVER DO!” This existential declaration in music hit the airways in 1965, a classic British Invasion contribution by Eric Burdon and the Animals. It was immediately embraced by collegians—collegians ending the evening at a lousy mixer, lamenting an unhappy social life, disgusted by a particular academic experience, or […]
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Chafe and Coach Ralph Townsend — new tributes
Chafe coached 3 sports. Doug Rae has written about his prowess as a soccer coach, Jon Weller now adds his recollection of Chafe the squash coach (to come: Trav Auburn on Chafe as a tennis mentor. Ted Ragsdale skied for the Williams Ski Team and knew Ralph Townsend well, and kept up with him after […]
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The sixties: the war in Vietnam and its music
It goes without saying that the Vietnam War was both a decisive and divisive event for the ‘60s, particularly the latter part. And the music around the war, both for and against it, was loud and impassioned. Two anthems of the antiwar movement were both released in 1967. “ I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” by Country Joe and […]
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That’s Park Street, not the Freshman Quad, not Park Avenue
Lowell Davis:
In the summer of 1964, nine freshmen (including me) were told that due to an overabundance of freshmen we would be living in a renovated home just outside the freshman quad. We lived in the home occupied by Jack Savacool who was a French professor at Williams.
Rock of Ages
The hits just kept on happening through a decade that summoned the energy of a renaissance and a revolution in what was called a youth culture — us, the children of warriors, raised in an era of unparalleled wealth, our college years bracketed by assassinations, against a backdrop of a civil rights movement that defined the era.
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Tony Plansky
Editor’s note: Bob Lux organized this tribute, reaching out to classmates Rod Maynard, George Schelling, and Peter Naylor (who first proposed the tribute). Bob also contacted Pete Farwell ’73, track coach at Williams for many years. Pete’s comments appear as a scanned image of a 1979 article published in the Williams Record. Phil McKnight ’65 also […]
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