button can be a window to an era. This A one certainly is. Long, wavy red hair and slightly askew shades frame a young man’s face while his lips curl into from a self-satisfied smile. Two fingers rise up to form a peace sign. Atop his head sits the nod to tradition: a revamped skimmer, closer to a floppy hippie hat than the original straw chapeau, adorned with the stars and stripes of an American flag. The slogan, SKIMMER ’71, erases any doubts about our character or his motives: he is a teaser, a throwback to a dying culture and a sign of movements to come.

It began in 1949 as Callow Day, named after Penn’s celebrated varsity heavyweight crew coach, Russell “Rusty” Callow. After he to warned that crew would “die out as a major sport” at Penn if something wasn’t done, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported, a “tri- umvirate of well-meaning undergraduates” arranged to have an April day dedicated to watching races and cheering on the Penn crew team. A modest group of students re- sponded, gathering at the banks of the Schuylkill River and wearing the short, Looking back at the (r)evolution wide-brimmed straw hats that were Callow’s trademark. Two years later, when Callow of spring festivals at Penn. left Penn to coach the United States Naval Academy’s crew team, the hat remained and BY VIOLET BARON the event became Skimmer Day. Its popular- ity grew and Skimmer Day’s schedule ex- panded to include a student rally, a poster contest, and a cabaret dance in Houston Hall. of the 20th century, as a “Rowbottom” tolerable level. But in 1963, Skimmer By the spring of 1955, the year that Penn’s [“Yea-a-a … Who?” Jul|Aug 2002]. In a letter coincided with the Penn Relays and with heavyweight crew team won an historic to the Gazette, Martin Griffin C’55 wrote Hey Day, a transitional tradition celebrat- victory against numerous top European that the cops who arrived on the scene ing the junior class’s rise to senior status, teams in the Henley Regatta on England’s around 3 a.m. “swiftly became targets for and students were again overcome by River Thames, Skimmer was in full swing. bottles and other missiles, especially, they “an ineffable, quasi-transcendental pre- A high-spirited crowd danced to a Dixieland seemed to feel, from the Deke house.” dilection to smash,” in the words of the jazz combo playing from the top of the According to the April 25, 1955 Evening DP. A car was pushed into the Schuylkill; grassy riverbank. Many men wore their Bulletin, “44 men and a girl” were arrested, fights broke out in fraternity houses; straw skimmer hats adorned with red and three policemen injured, two fraternity projectiles were thrown at passing cars; blue bands as they sang and danced; one houses (Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Delta students again clashed with police. The or two sported sombreros. This is what Kappa Epsilon) damaged, and a patrol car trolley tracks on Locust Street were set Skimmer became in its prime: a much- “dented.” Both the Penn administration on fire. Many students were arrested, anticipated retreat to the river for singing, and the Fairmount Park Commission and the festival was punitively cancelled dancing, drinking, and celebration. It was “began to express misgivings about the for the following year. “The University an opportunity, at the end of the spring event,” according to an article in the regrets exceedingly the series of rowdy, term, to release the stress of a school year University Archives, and though Skimmer inexcusable, and irresponsible acts last and embrace the joy of the coming summer. activities the next few years were mostly Friday and Saturday by a number of Unfortunately, the celebratory revelry peaceful, the event was cancelled in 1959. University students and their guests and inspired by crew victories over Princeton In the early 1960s, concerts by the likes will take prompt and severe disciplinary and Columbia soon degenerated into stu- of Louis Armstrong were held at Franklin action against those involved,” stated dent-led rioting—known at Penn, for much Field, where drinking could be kept to a the vice president for student affairs. PENN ARCHIVES

56 MAY | JUNE 2015 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MAY | JUNE 2015 57 The students’ 1964 answer to Skimmer’s Unlike 1966, when men still had to wear they dedicated to Glee Club Director Bruce cancellation was Remmiks (spell it back- jackets and ties to dinner, and women Montgomery before launching into their wards), an alternative spring event em- had to wear skirts in the library, recalls biggest song, “Ship of the Future.” phasizing the embryonic ethos of peace, Marmon, “by the fall of ’68, spring of ’69, As Skimmer drifted inexorably into love, and harmony—or, in the words of the all of those rules—every one of them—was the past, the energy once reserved for DP: a day of “idyllic joy and beer and gone.” He remembers the introduction of Rowbottoms and raucous crew-team Schuylkill and girls and police and beer drugs and new trends in music and art, cheers flowed into student movements and—oh yes, crew races.” Jazz saxophonist the end of oppressive curfews and the and protests, sit-ins and be-ins, student Gerry Mulligan and the folk duo Bud & introduction of pass/fail, brought forth government petitions and defiant, sym- Travis were the headliners. by the newly formed SCUE, or Student bolic burnings of draft cards and ma- By 1967, recalls Stephen Marmon C’71 Committee on Undergraduate Education. triculation cards. If Skimmer was a WG’81, a member of Penn’s student gov- Disc jockey and radio personality Carol remnant of an old Penn, an old boys’ club ernment during his undergraduate years, Miller C’72, who got her start at WXPN, that preached decorum while practicing Skimmer still featured a “Skimmer con- witnessed the beginnings of a transition otherwise, then its demise was a final cert on campus, and then everyone went to coed living as a female student living stamping out of the life that students down to the Schuylkill for men’s crew in Hill House. She remembers the lag be- were supposed to lead. With the end of races.” The concert was held at the west- tween lax new rules for dorm life and Skimmer, that generation of students ern end of Franklin Field. “Students changes in student behavior and culture. bid goodbye to the people they were sup- would fill the entire field,” adds Marmon, In some ways, she says, it was easier to posed to become and the society that now chair and CEO of Olana Capital, who navigate the intricacies of sexuality and they were supposed to enter with pride. remembers students bringing blankets consent when rules for visitation were “By that time, the alternative was very and drinks. still managed by the University. big,” says Ira Harkavy C’70 Gr’79, then a “There’s sex, and there’s drugs, and “You hear about date rape and all that leader of student movements against the there’s rock n’ roll on the stage,” he says. stuff on campus [today],” she says. Vietnam War and other societal ills, now “It was a mini-Woodstock in the spring “Believe me, it was going on. But when associate vice president and founding di- of ’67 right there.” you had to go back to the dorm [for a rector of Penn’s Barbara and Edward Netter Well, sort of. The drinking consisted curfew], it was pretty easy to get out of Center for Community Partnerships. of “mainly endless cans of beer,” and to a date you didn’t want to be in.” Harkavy and his friends were more con- the best of his recollection there were Speaking of changing mores, Marmon cerned with events reaching beyond cam- “not too many joints,” since “marijuana remembers what may have been “the last pus; like most undergraduate men in those didn’t really hit the scene until the fol- ‘true’ Rowbottom,” which took place dur- years, the stomach-churning possibility lowing fall.” But Marmon does remember ing his sophomore year. One night a group of being drafted to fight in Vietnam was “seeing several couples hooking up, as of men living in the Quad stormed Hill never far from his mind. Marmon remem- we would say today, right on the wet House, then a women’s dormitory, intend- bers Harkavy giving a passionate speech Franklin Field turf.” ing to demand a ransom of intimate cloth- in October 1969 urging the University to That Skimmer weekend did set records ing. To their surprise, the hall’s adminis- lower its American flags to half-mast in for Penn student events: according to a trators had prepared for the intrusion by honor of Vietnam War dead, a motion that DP story, nearly 3,000 students had filled organizing a mixer, which he recalls as the student government passed after some Franklin field that Friday night to watch very nice, “but not what we expected.” controversy—culminating in then-sopho- acts like Smokey Robinson and the more Dorian Dale C’72 burning his ma- Miracles, the Young Rascals, and the By 1971, Skimmer had nearly run its course, triculation card during the student govern- Chiffons. The weekend was packed with morphing from a free-form and some- ment’s plenum. That motion acknowledged socializing and concerts for students, times violent celebration of crew races the fear of the draft and antipathy toward with “cocktail parties” on Saturday and into a campus-based weekend of music, the war that so many undergraduate men Sunday mornings, and fraternity parties drugs, drinking, and frat parties. A large had—so much so, according to Marmon, with more concerts Saturday night. portion of the undergraduate body con- that a hugely disproportionate number By this time Skimmer’s locus was shift- sidered itself too hip to attend, preferring were applying to the Graduate School of ing irretrievably away from the sporting to celebrate the weekend holed up in Education in hopes of earning a deferment. event on the river. The DP’s Liz Yousem apartments and West Philly houses for Meanwhile, students like Dale were or- wrote that after Saturday morning’s cock- private gatherings. ganizing around issues that were new in tails, students walked to the Schuylkill Nick Spitzer C’72, another ’XPNer who is the national consciousness, like preserv- for the “second show of the weekend with now the public-radio producer of American ing the environment and curbing pollution. maybe a crew race or two thrown in.” A Routes and an anthropology professor Dale helped plan and facilitate the first captioned picture of a cheerful group of at Tulane University [“Digging Routes,” national Earth Day event in 1970, for which students on blankets by the river claimed Mar|Apr 2009], remembers Penn’s own Edi- Penn became the unofficial headquarters. that close to “10,000 revelers (not all stu- son Electric opening for the Youngbloods at Penn’s event, which spread out over an dents) watched the crew races. At least Irvine Auditorium and doing a “very rocked- entire week and into Fairmount Park, in-

that’s what they said they were doing.” out version of ‘Drink a Highball’”—which cluded speakers like US Senator Edmund JOSH COCHRAN

58 MAY | JUNE 2015 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MAY | JUNE 2015 59 Muskie, activist Ralph Nader, the Native together acts ranging from folk and John Legend C’99 Hon’14, Flo Rida, Wyclef American band Redbone, the cast of folk-rock to hard rock and heavy metal— Jean, Snoop Dogg, Ben Folds, Janelle “Hair,” and the popular philosopher Alan even a square dance in the Lower Quad Monae, David Guetta, Passion Pit, and Watts. As the undergraduate representa- led by Bates McClain. Girl Talk. Fling weekends are packed with tive to the board of directors, Dale planned Despite a total budget of $873—all con- activities, from the Friday-night concert the event with a mix of Penn graduate tributed by students, mostly Haft, Dibo, to carnival-style activities in the Quad on students and professors, planners outside and Salvay—that fi rst Fling was a suc- Saturday and concerts sponsored by SPEC the University, and corporate representa- cess. Others took over after that, and the throughout the weekend. tives like General Electric. rest of the decade saw an exponential For some, the very size and alcohol- By then, “Skimmer was increasingly in rise in student participation, to the point fueled scope make it something to be erosion alongside the cultural and envi- where Fling became one of the most wary of. Ballester says that the atmo- ronmental explosion at Penn and nation- popular events of the year. sphere can lead to “a lot of misogyny, wide on college campuses,” says Spitzer. Though the term Rowbottom may have and rape culture.” “It’s just that the Penn community was in gone out of vogue, alcohol-fueled prop- “Fling for me has always kind of repre- the forefront, and the landscape of grand erty damage and violence were still an sented a sad time, sort of like institution- old gray, fading, and then re-greening issue. In 1988, students stampeded, stole ally funded drunkenness and institution- Philadelphia was its canvas.” He remem- performance equipment, and trashed two ally funded irresponsibility,” says Penny bers a string quartet playing an electrify- men’s bathrooms in the Quad, causing Jennewein C’14, who spent much of her ing anti-war piece titled “The Dark Angels” $7,000 worth of damage, according to the time in college developing alternative by Penn music professor George Crumb DP. The fête was tenuously allowed to ways to live and thrive. During her fresh- Hon’09, intergalactic jazz by Sun Ra and continue, with the signifi cant loss taken man year she co-founded the Penn Haven his Arkestra, Philly soul bands and street from the planning committee’s budget. Housing Co-op, an off -campus cooperative preachers—and a “wide range of people As the student body became more varied house dedicated to social justice, which speechifying, dancing, or tripping. It was and diverse, divisions in participation a couple of years ago was one of three a serious delirium of possibility!” grew along racial lines. For its fi rst three groups to off er a cheaper, more diverse The following year Skimmer included decades, Fling (which usually featured alternative to Fling and its Friday-night “the annual Phineas T. Rowbottom Sports alternative rock) overlapped with the concert. That year, the Orthodox Jewish Car Rallye,” according to the April 23, 1971 Penn Relays concert, which drew more community at Penn provided a Sabbath- issue of the DP. The event featured the students of color and became associated friendly alternative to the concert, while Steve Miller Band and It’s A Beautiful with hip-hop; in 1981, black students pro- the United Minorities Council hosted a Day. But in that year’s The Record, the tested the funding inequities that accom- Celebration of Cultures. That alternative undergraduate yearbook, a number of panied those divisions. In 2004, Penn’s Fling “was really about building alternate seniors confessed that they had already Social Planning and Events Committee culture,” she says, recalling things like stopped attending. to Represent Undergraduate Minorities “bike rides, drum circle, meditation.” A (SPEC-TRUM), had to decide whether to slight smirk accompanies the memory. a rainy Sunday in February 1973, move the location or the date of the Relays On Craig Salvay C’74 stopped by the concert, featuring Kanye West, because Perhaps Penn’s spring fest has undergone Bodine dorm room of his friends the required security personnel could not a revolution in the truest sense of the word: Bobbie Haft W’74 and Dave Dibo W’75. The be provided to both that concert and Fling. a 360-degree rotation from an alcohol- two had an idea for a spring arts festival, The group fi rst moved the event off cam- fueled opportunity for students to let out which they proceeded to run by Salvay. pus, then returned it to campus on a dif- the stress of a long year’s work, into—much “We all agreed that Skimmer Weekend— ferent weekend. the same. The arrests and serious debauch- its car rally, boat races, and other ac- Over the years Fling has become an ery may have diminished, but the spirit couterments—had lost its relevance,” increasingly anticipated campus event, lives on, while some students still prefer Salvay recalls. A new spring celebration and according to senior Lauren Ballester to skip the crowds and participate in alter- was needed, one that involved food, mu- EAS’15, it’s “the highlight of the spring native forms of revelry. sic, and art; it would refl ect “neither a semester for a lot of people.” Noting that Skimmer itself has been revived and particular tradition nor follow any pat- “people who never participate in Penn repositioned in the form of “Skimmer Fest.” tern.” He thinks it was probably Haft social life will participate in Fling,” she The fusion of Skimmer and Fall Fest, held who came up with the name Spring Fling adds: “And people go hard. Very heavy on College Green a few weeks into the and the fi rst logo: an outline of Matisse’s drinking, lots of partying. People count fall semester, has off ered such entertain- La Danse. Haft also assembled an “array down [the days leading up to it] and bring ment as hot-air balloon rides, a Dave of two- and three-dimensional artists” their friends from far and wide. It is a Matthews cover band, and the Quaker from Penn and the Philadelphia area, big deal.” Girls dance team. The idea is to get stu- says Salvay, while Dibo handled the In the past several years, Fling concerts dents fi red up for a new season of Penn food, the linchpin for which was a ven- have featured Billboard-topping headlin- football and other sports. Go Quakers.◆ dor named Al, the Fruit Man. Salvay ers in genres ranging from hip hop to

took charge of the music, and brought alternative rock, including artists like Violet Baron is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. JOSH COCHRAN

60 MAY | JUNE 2015 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MAY | JUNE 2015 61