Walk on the Wilde Side Returns After 60 Years

For as long as I can remember, I have heard the legend of my grandfather’s days at The Amherst Student. My “Grumpa,” Hal Wilde, graduated in 1967 — when tuition was $2,600, The Student was published twice a week, and Frost Library had just been built to lukewarm reviews (“Opinions Mixed on Library: Inside Great, But Outside …”), and there were only men at the “college on the hill.”

While poking around in the archives a few weeks ago, I hoped to confirm my grandpa’s boasts about his articles on issues of the time, philosophical musings, and so on. Instead, I found his sarcastic 1965 column, “Walk on the Wilde Side.”

While I have always known my grandfather to be a progressive man — he campaigned for Democratic Presidential Candidate and Senator Eugene McCarthy, was in Mississippi for the Civil Rights Movement, wrote speeches for a Democratic Governor — his 1965 self was a bit of a cad. In his satirical column, he commented on a variety of campus-related and national events: He made up minutes from a student meeting, offered pseudo-suggestions on how to better Amherst campus, joked wittily about the “need” for more commercialization, mocked his admittance into the 1960s “Pepsi Generation,” hosted a campus-wide trivia contest, and wrote a lot about Smith girls.

My grandpa even complained extensively about future New Jersey senator and NBA Hall-of-Famer Bill Bradley after receiving a letter from his mom (my great-grandma) asking why he couldn’t be more like Bill. In response, my grandpa described Bill Bradley as: “the Benedict Arnold of the present college generation. He has sold out to our parents — and our grandparents. How can we explain the desire to quit school, our not going out for the team, our failing grades, or our wish to work for the SNCC in Mississippi, when there exists a guy who’s the best amateur basketball player in the country, a scholar, a pillar in the church, a guy who apparently doesn’t give one damn about ‘commitment’ (except to his own success), a guy who is handsome and well-liked?”

In one of his more drawn-out bits, my grandpa adopted the alter ego of “The Preyboy Advisor,” offering crude advice to fictional readers:

“I have been hired by the city of New York to aid in their campaign to save water, but as yet I have been unable to come up with any suggestions. Can you offer a catchy slogan?”

— S. C. Wyncote, Pennsylvania.

How about this one: “Save Water: Take a Shower With a Friend.”

“A couple of my buddies have recently told me that they don’t think that my girlfriend’s habit of chewing tobacco is quite proper, but I find nothing in Emily Post about it. What do you advise?”

— W. P. B., Wayne, Pennsylvania.

As long as she offers you some, there is nothing wrong with it, but we don’t advise you to marry her unless you are planning to be a dentist.

A native of Wisconsin, many of my grandpa’s columns were related to his Midwestern roots. He even offered advice to his own "alter ego":

“I have heard that it’s in on college campuses these days to be involved in protests over Vietnam, campus restrictions, and Civil Rights, but every time I go to one of these meetings, people say I look like a big hunk of Wisconsin cheese and that I should go back to the farm. What do you recommend?”

— H. R. W. Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

There are certain holes in your argument. Obviously they aren’t referring to your looks, it’s your smell. We suggest you don’t take a shower for a month, so that you will be recognized as an authentic student activist.

Reading his columns, I’m consistently shown how much both the world and Amherst have changed. You no longer need to hitchhike to Smith to meet women, and you certainly cannot write about them in the ways my grandpa so brazenly did: “I put on blue jeans, shaved my beard, learned how to get drunk on Saturday nights, talked about Yale boys, and called myself a Smith student. Then people said I was a nut.” We no longer cheer in praise of the genocidal Lord Jeffrey Amherst, and instead put our tusks up in support of the Mammoths.

But there are some things that still ring true. Frost Library’s outside is still unsatisfying. There are still campus issues, events, and famous figures which take themselves too seriously and deserve a bit of playful treatment. The Amherst Student is still an institution that gives us a forum by which to deliver it (though now you can read it online).

In an effort to blend satire and scrutiny, I welcome you back to “Walk on the Wilde Side.” While the subject matter may have changed, the themes and spirit of reflection remain the same. Whether it’s the ups and downs of campus life, the Val menu, or the mysteries of Amherst’s bureaucracy, I hope to offer thoughtful and lighthearted reflections on the events that shape our college experience.