Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site seismo.UUCP 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.