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Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: bml@netcom.com (Brian Leibowitz)
Subject: Re: Topic(al) of the day, Peanut butter
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 16:30:19 GMT

In article <CtK6Ex.GAF@cfanews.harvard.edu> cheimets@cfa.harvard.edu (Peter Cheimets) writes: >All this talk of peanut butter reminded me of an event that took place at MIT
>in the spring of 1975, when I was there. The bridge that goes from campus
>into boston (Harvard Bridge, go figure) is painted with markers called
>"Smoots" This because some kids rolled some guy by that name end over end one
>drunken night in the 60's. The keepers of these markings were the freshman in
>one of the fraternities.

...(description of interfraternity incident omitted)

I've said it before and I'll say it again.... Smoot was NOT rolled end over end and he was NOT drunk that night. (Also, it was 1958, not 60s)

>From the book _The Journal of the Institute for Hacks, TomFoolery and
Pranks at MIT_:

The official length of the Harvard Bridge is 364.4 Smoots plus one ear. Distances on the bridge are indicated with a colored paint mark every Smoot and a number every ten Smoots. Biannually, the pledge class of Lambda Chi Alpha repaints the markings with a new color. The police have come to accept the Smoot marks. In fact, they use the markers to indicate locations when filing accident reports. After the bridge was rebuilt in the late 1980s, the Smoot markings reappeared and the tradition continued.

The story of these markings as told by Oliver Reed Smoot, Jr., '62:

As all who walked the bridge in those days will remember, it was difficult, especially in the rain, sleet, snow, and fog of which Boston gets its share, to know how much further you had to go to get to the Institute. So in October 1958, O'Connor .J.J. devised the idea of marking off the bridge in pledge lengths. Scanning the assembled pledge class, he determined that I had the short end of the stick.
As with many pledge tasks, there was an easy way out if a little ingenuity was exercised -- namely use a string. In any case, Pete, Gordon, Nate and Bill agreed to help and we set off with the paint, chalk, etc. Unfortunately, a brother in the class of '61 thought this task was so hilarious that he accompanied us. With him there, we had no choice but to do the actual measurements. I can tell you that even then I could not do the equivalent of 365 push-ups, so much of the way I was carried or dragged.
Luckily for the five of us, we were cold sober; in any case, when an MDC [Metropolitan District Commission] black van appeared at about the 300 mark, we cut for the dark recesses of the Great Court and waited for them to leave.