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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!flinn
From: flinn@seismo.UUCP (E. A. Flinn)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Dick Jahns & Caltech student lore
Message-ID: <649@seismo.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Mar-84 15:22:27 EST
Article-I.D.: seismo.649
Posted: Mon Mar  5 15:22:27 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Mar-84 03:23:03 EST
Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA
Lines: 34


  Bill Jefferys's story about hanging the pickle on the statue of James
Hogg at the University of Texas reminds me of the statue of Apollo (a
copy of the Apollo Belvedere) that stood in the breezeway at the south
end of Throop Hall before Throop had to be demolished.  Apparently at
one time the statue had a penis, but it had been broken off and stolen
by somebody, presumably for use as a paperweight.  There was some fuss
about this, and I think a story in the campus newspaper with headline
"Who Pilfered Apollo's Appendage?"

  I was sorry to hear the other day that Dick Jahns died - he was
Professor of Geology at Caltech before he moved on to Penn State and
then Stanford as deans in both places.  Dick was a master of practical
jokes, and much loved by everyone - even those who did badly in his
courses.  It has always been believed that many of the water balloons
targeted at Ossifer "Fig" Newton and other passers-by were actually
dropped by Dick.
  The year before I arrived, the geology grad students booby-trapped
Dick's lab while he was on a field trip: the lab was next to his
office, both with doors to the hall and with a connecting door in
between.  They reversed the cylinder on his office door so he would
have to go in through the lab.  In the lab they put smoke bombs,
attached a whistle to the air valve on the bench, and strung
firecrackers all over the ceiling on a quick fuse - everything was
rigged to the door handle so it would all go off when Dick came in.
  Unfortunately when Dick found that his office door key didn't work,
he went across the hall to somebody else's office and called the campus
locksmith.  The locksmith was a little old Irish fellow, who couldn't
get the office door open, but recalled that the same key worked in the
lab door, so it was he instead of Jahns who opened the lab door and was
engulfed in smoke, firecrackers, and the ear-splitting whistle.  While
Dick was rocking with laughter, the locksmith thrashed around in the
lab for a minute or two, and then disappeared down the hall; he
was never seen again on campus.