I grew up with stories of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as my father had grown up nearby and he received his masters degree there. Here is my favorite story from him:
A streetcar stopped in front of MIT and was surrounded by a crowd of students. They began to get on and off the car – one student would board, drop a nickle in the till, walk to the back, and get off. Then another student would enter… The driver knew the students were crazy, so he just waited until they were finished. They backed away so he could continue his route. He put the streetcar in gear, but nothing happened. He got out and looked at the wheels – all had been welded to the track with thermite.
When I went to Case Institute of Technology they had a similar tradition. Below are some that occurred while I was there.
A group of ROTC students put on their uniforms and began directing traffic in front of the school (a main road). They directed it into the campus. Others directed it through campus and out the side, onto a side road. All went well until a semi-trailer couldn’t make a turn in the middle of campus. The students went back to their rooms, changed their clothes, and went back out to watch.
A particularly boring professor was giving a lecture to half-asleep students. Suddenly, there was a duck call, two shots, and a plucked chicken landed on the stage. The professor immediately gave an impossibly difficult quiz and said he would count it as half the course grade unless the people who did this confessed. The line to confess stretched halfway across the campus.
The school ended improper file alarms by notifying the students that the resulting fines would be paid from the school’s scholarship fund.
In addition to pranks, Case had some other traditions – my favorites are colored icicles and floods next to campus. My original freshman dorm – and the same dorm for my three sophomore years – was three stories of rooms, plus a basement at the top of a 100’ cliff overlooking a major traffic artery.
In the winter, those with rooms above the cliff would set up large containers of colored water with tubes to drip it out the window. Usually, those on the three floors would coordinate their colors. This resulted in 50+’ colored icicles, generally several feet thick. Today, that dorm is faculty offices, and I doubt they have continued the icicle tradition.
In the fall one year I was there, the fallen leaves in the fall plugged the drains and the major artery flooded as deep as 5’. Most of the students went into the water to play, swim, and push cars and buses out of the water.
When I was at Harvard Business School I heard of another MIT prank.
During the half-time of the Harvard Yale football game smoke came from the ground in the middle of the field, then there was a loud bang. Finally, a large balloon inflated, with MIT in large letters on it so both sides of the field could read it.
A friend at HBS, who had gone to the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech), told me of some of their pranks – which they are known for. I actually saw the first one while I was in high school.
Card displays in the stands was a Rose Bowl tradition. Students from each school would take large colored cards, and hold up one on command. Some Cal Tech students modified the instructions and “Cal Tech” appeared in giant letters during the game.
Some Cal Tech students experimented with water balloons. They calculated that with the proper elastics they could drop water balloons in the middle of a campus a couple of miles away. Of course, they had to test it – and several dozen balloons were launched.
At least one car – a VW bug I was told – was taken apart and reassembled on top of a building. Apparently, a crane was needed to remove it.
HBS had no prank tradition – no surprise. So when I began working at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute I was looking forward to learning their prank traditions, but they had none. The closest I heard of was rappelling down the side of the nine story engineering building – unusual, perhaps, but not a prank. I went so far as to offer extra credit on an exam for suggesting a prank, with more credit if it occurred. But the suggested pranks were unworthy of an engineering school, and none occurred.
Not pranks, but equally interesting to me, I grew up with Norbert Weiner stories – a prototypical absent-minded professor at MIT.
Weiner asked if there were any questions about the homework problem. “Yes”, a student replied, “How do you solve it?” Weiner thought for a few seconds and wrote the answer on the blackboard. “Does this answer your question?”, he asked. “No, professor.” Weiner thought longer, and wrote the answer again. “Is it clear now?” Same answer. Weiner thought for a long time and wrote the answer on the board for a third time. Then, he said: “I’ve worked it for you three different ways. If you don’t understand it now you probably never will.” And he began the lecture.
Weiner was walking across the MIT campus and stopped to talk with someone. After they finished the conversation, Weiner asked “When you stopped me, which way was I going?” “You were going that way Professor.” “Oh, then I’ve had lunch.”
One of my thesis committee members told me another.
Weiner had just moved to a different house in Cambridge (where MIT is located). While he was walking home the first day after the move he realized he didn’t know how to get to his new house. He decided to go to his old house and quiz someone. When he got there a young girl was playing in the front yard. He said to her “Do you know that I used to live here?” “Yes, I know that.” she answered. “Do you know where I live now?” he asked. “Don’t worry Daddy, I’ll take you home.” she answered.
While I was at HBS I visited a great aunt on my mother’s side, my grandfather’s sister. She lived in Andover, Massachusetts with a friend. During our conversation I learned that her friend had been the secretary of Harvard’s Dean of the Medical School for many years. Then I learned that she had gone to grammar school with Norbert Weiner. She said he was obviously very smart, but was frequently late to school by an hour or more. Invariably, he’d gotten interested in something (ant hill, growth on a tree, etc.) and lost track of time as he concentrated.
Finally, again not a prank, there are spoonerisms – I was told that they are named after an Ensign Spooner, who was assigned at the Naval Academy. Here’s the one I remember:
“Mardon me Padom, you are occupuing the wrong pie, may I sew you to another sheet.”
I think of this frequently when talking with our friend Lois, who often chooses a wrong – but similar – word in conversation. We call it “speaking Lois” and can usually translate it.
July 11, 2020