Yesterday I was looking for a specific photograph about which all I could remember was that it was located someplace you wouldn’t expect. I found it (naturally!) but in the course of the search I also came across this charming image from the Homecoming celebration in 1967. I think they were getting ready to lay a wreath at the statue of WMR and it was raining but not raining hard enough to interfere. I love everyone’s rain gear! You just don’t see those bonnets anymore.
I can identify most of these folks: I don’t know the couple at the far left, but that’s Malcolm Lovett Sr. and possibly his wife Martha, Rice Chancellor Carey Croneis and his wife, President Pitzer and his wife Jean, and at right Miss Sarah Lane and another woman I can’t see.
The few hardy onlookers were also well prepared:
Sometimes, by the way, it feels like every single picture I touch is a potential can of worms. Looking at this one I was perplexed by the cypress that sits right smack in the middle of the frame. What the heck? That shouldn’t be there. When was that a thing? So I went and got an aerial from approximately the same time and discovered that the tree is the least weird thing about the quad in 1967. Check out the hedges:
Bonus: The second attempt to install the handle on the RMC door. Close enough.
