Word: vagabonde
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...dingy, impertinent, little trains chug in every few minutes and, before they have even skated to a halt, begin to spew forth a few score commuters who flash past him on staccato high heels or solemn, rubber-heeled oxfords. Cogs in the Hub's vast commercial machine, muses the Vagabond, as he lolls against a post. Each one intent only on getting to his or her job on time so that, when the man at the top of the heap pushes the button, all the units can awake into smooth action simultaneously. Vag watches them as he fumbles...
...Vagabond has read the first editorial this morning and does not agree. To him life is not affected much by the kind of day. Whether the sun is out or not in Cambridge makes little difference in the quantity of nine-o'clock or hour exams. When mud puddles swoosh in the streets and everybody is nasty and wet, Vag sometimes fails to preserve his charming manner; but that's no reason to slap five courses onto the University's enormous curriculum...
Beyond him lie the treacherous traffic rapids of Kosciusko Square, beyond the uncharted, teeming hinterlands of Langdell, Walter Hastings, and the Music Building--a truly blood-chilling panorama. Behind him lie the gray Azores of Phillips Brooks House and the quiet harbors of the Yard. But, Columbus-like, the Vagabond pushes on into the unfamiliar waters ahead. Tacking unskillfully along the North Cambridge car line, Vag's frail cockleshell almost at once encounters a large white island; whose towering stone cliffs rise perpendicular from the water's edge. San Domingo, perhaps? No, young Columbus...
Today at high noon by the chronometer, the Vagabond will cruise to Robinson Hall to hear Professor Martin Wagner, of the Department of Regional Planning, lecture (without slides) on the derivation of the principal visual elements of modern architecture from the changed conditions of living characteristc of the twentieth century. Bolstered by this new knowledge, Vag, is sure that he will be able to steer a better architectural course around these new building-islands which are springing up in these University waters...
...with a tan cap, vintage of the 1920's. He stands on corners around the Square a good bit even now and says hello to most everyone. Most everyone says hello to him, too. He generally doesn't know their names, but they almost always know his. The Vagabond is one of his pals, although he doesn't know that Vag is Vag. Many a student, not excluding Vag, is indebted to this soft little man, for when they are desperate for a fin, he will take practically anything as security. He's been here a long time...