CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“FROM Blue Cayuga,” piped the young voices in the autumn evening –
“From hill and dell, Far rings the story of the glory of Cornell -”
Doctor Harold Roseberry, PE-002, laid two documents side by side on the naked, waxy expanse of the top of his rosewood desk. The desk, big enough for a helicopter to land on, was a gift from the Cornell alumni, and a silver plate on one corner said so. Justification of the lavish gift was inlaid in precious woods on the desk top: the football scores run up by the Big Red during the past five seasons. The why and wherefore of this object, at least, would leave no questions in the minds of future arch?ologists. “From East and West the crashing echoes answering call,” cried the young voices, and Doctor Roseberry found it extremely difficult to concentrate on the two documents before him: a memo from the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, a quaint, antique man in a quaint, antique part of the university; and a five-year-old letter from a carping alumnus who objected to the deportment of the team when off the playing field. The memo from the dean said that a Mr. Ewing J. Halyard had arrived in town in order to show the university to the Shah of Bratpuhr, and, incidentally, to make up a seventeen-year-old credit deficiency in physical education. The memo asked that Doctor Roseberry assign one of his staff to the chore of giving Halyard the final physical-education tests the next morning.
“Cornell victorious! The champions of all!”
came the voices. Doctor Roseberry was inclined to react ironically to the last line of the song. “Certainly, victorious last year, four years afore that,” he muttered in his pregnant solitude. But here was another year that might not look so hot inlaid in rosewood. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” he said wearily. Every coach in the Ivy League was out to knock him down to a PE-003 again, and two losses would do it. Yale and Penn were loaded. Yale had floated a bond to buy the whole Texas A&M backfield, and Penn had bought Breslaw from Wisconsin for $43,000. Roseberry groaned. “How the hell long they think a man can play college football?” he wanted to know. Six years before, Cornell had bought him from Wabash College, and asked him to list his idea of a dream team. Then, by God they’d bought it for him. “But what the hell they think they bought?” he asked himself. “Sumpin’ made outa steel and see-ment? Supposed to last a lifetime, is it?” They hadn’t bought him so much as a water boy since, and the average age of the Big Red was now close to thirty-one.
“Far above Cayuga’s waters, With its waves of blue, Stands our noble Alma Mater, Glorious to view -”
came the voices. “Certainly it’s glorious,” said Doctor Roseberry. “Who the hell you figure paid for it?” In its first two years the football team had paid for itself. In the next three, it had paid for a new chemistry building, a heat and power laboratory, a new administration building for the Agricultural Engineering Department, and four new professorial chairs: the Philosophy of Creative Engineering, Creative Engineering History, Creative Public Relations for Engineers, and Creative Engineering and the Captive Consumer. Roseberry, who wasn’t expected to pay any attention to the academic side of the university, had nonetheless kept a careful accounting of all these improvements, glorious to view, that had been added since he and his football team had arrived far above Cayuga’s waters. In anticipation of a poor season, he was roughing out in his mind a polemic letter to the alumni, in which the academic expenditures would figure prominently. He had the first line of the letter, following the salutation, “Sportsmen,” already perfected, and enjoyed imagining it written out in capitals: “IS THE FOOTBALL BUSINESS AT CORNELL GOING TO BE RUN ON A BUSINESS-LIKE BASIS, OR IS THE BIG RED GOING TO BE BLED WHITE?” And then the next sentence sprang inspirationally to mind: “IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS, NOT ONE CENT HAS BEEN REINVESTED IN THE BUSINESS, NOT ONE CENT LAID ASIDE FOR DEPRECIATION!” He saw now that the whole thing would have to be in caps. The situation called for a letter with real punch. The telephone rang. “Doctor Roseberry speakin’.” “This is Buck Young, Doc. Note here says you wanted me to call.” The husky voice was tinged with uneasiness, just as Roseberry had hoped it would be. He could imagine that Buck had sat by the phone with the note in his hand for several minutes before he’d dialed. Now that Buck had gone this far, Roseberry told himself, he’d go the rest of the way too. “Yeah, yeah,” said Roseberry, smiling captivatingly. “Bucky boy, how are you?” “Fine. What’s on your mind?” “Maybe I should ask what’s on yours.” “Thermodynamics. Stress analysis. Fluid flow. Differential equations.” “Aaah,” said Roseberry, “why’n’t you loosen up and have a beer with me down at The Dutch? You hear the news I got, I think maybe you’ll get something else on your mind.”