Hi Raymond,

The woods where the Newboys cabin was built I recall as being sapling to pole-sized red and white pine, maybe 4"-10" dbh, with perhaps some older ones overstory. Right where the cabin was I don't remember being dense or particularly dark so there had to have been some thinning and pruning done. There was a distinctly different patch just to the south where the pines were less than (I'd say) ten years old coming up as if from abandoned pasture or clearcut. Though not far from the road, the cabin was satisfactorily shielded from the Newboys dormhead's apartment but I don't remember the site being oppressively dark. Probably it got a fair amount of south light from abutting the younger clearing. I'll bet that was the section that you knew later as densely overgrown.

It's interesting to try to recall the silviculture there. Other than shingling the roof (an art that I had just learned and proudly demonstrated) I didn't have anything to do with the cabin's construction. But that same summer (1973), Putney hired five or six of us to cut oak and beech logs for the new arts building from down in the valley around the Cliff Hut. We had only an ancient Model B John Deere for a skidder and a 2-ton '66 Chevy for trucking so we couldn't have yarded out enough to really alter the landscape -- quite a bit of nice red oak though. As I recall, we trucked it all up to the hillside near the alumni house where it all seasoned before they got the sawmill installed. Probably ended up burnt as firewood -- a tremendous waste really. The timbers that they eventually milled for the arts building I think all ended up being purchased off-site. And, the whole student-built building burned down a year or so after it was built anyway, and was rebuilt with insurance money with contracted labor and materials.

I don't have any pictures of the cabins except for a fair-to-poor quality photocopy of the Lit Mag cover I mentioned with Randolph, looking like the sweet-tempered Colorado mountain man he was, in the cabin's doorway. It doesn't show much of the cabin itself -- you can just tell it's made out of logs -- but I'd be happy to mail you a copy if you'd like it. Although I've not spoken to him since Putney, Ben Pfohl lives not far from here in Blue Hill, Maine and I'll ask him to get in touch with you directly if you'd like. He might have photos of the Arms cabin. At least he'd have some accurate information.

My friend and classmate Brad Brooks crosses paths with Randolph's cabin-mate Keith MacIntosh occasionally in Santa Fe where I think Keith has a catering business. I'll see if I can pass along your inquiry that way as well.

John Randolph's expulsion is typically both a tragic and funny story. I'm pretty sure that it happened during spring project week which would have been within the last ten days of our senior term. Randolph and some others (several young girls I think, but don't quote me) absconded at night with the school's Suburban (auto theft being an attractive nuisance for many of us those years with the keys hanging 24/7 and unprotected by the front door of the main building) and drove it to the McDonalds in Keene where, it being midnight or so, they aroused the attention of the NH police.

He really was an erstwhile guy, kind, mild-tempered, & capable -- in many ways an embodiment of the vaunted 'Putney Spirit'. That, juxtaposed with his imminent expulsion, was the irony that put his photo on the Lit Mag cover. The editorial board held the Litmag's delivery until graduation day and the controversy that ensued (however briefly) proved we had not misjudged the effect, I think.

I must share with you at least one cabin-situated prank. While weed usage stayed fairly steady, that period of Putney's extra-legal history was marked by a certain upswing in beer keg consumption (following an ebb several years earlier of Boone's Farm twist-offs). One late winter Saturday, the newboys cabin was the site of a keg party which must have gotten underway fairly early and been well-attended because the keg ran out about two in the afternoon. Beer rashness and vainglory being what they are, that prompted a pair to hitch-hike down to the General Store to pick up a replacement (a smaller quarter keg -- the regular ones requiring a day's notice to order). Hitching back so encumbered and plainly with impaired judgement, they were summarily given a lift by the Newboys dormhead who, naturally, confiscated the keg. Even if the keg had been dressed in a spare overcoat, it must have seemed a particularly pathetic infraction.

The cabin atmosphere was morose for the remainder of the day until sometime that night when Randolph and I ventured to burgle the dormhead's apartment to retrieve the keg. The party then reconvened and finished that keg also. Then, in flash of sublime wisdom, some tutelary prompted me to suggest refilling the empty keg and returning it to defuse even the implication of offense.

Randolph and I spent probably two hours refilling the keg with a KDU milk pitcher in the Newboys bathtub. It took forever because, inverted, the keg would only take 4 ounces or so of water at a time though its open tap before it had to be reverted and 'burped' through the top pressure relief valve. Wa eventually did it though, and tiptoed breathlessly back through the dormhead's apartment and down to the garage where we replaced the keg exactly as we'd found it hours earlier.

That alone was plenty satisfactory as an accomplishment. But, to compound, on the eve of that spring break the Newboys dormhead (whom we of course mercilessly dissed) put up several posters around the faculty lounge and mailboxes rather gleefully announcing his own party featuring the confiscated keg. Reliable witnesses later reported that it wasn't until the party was actually underway that the host discovered subterfuge. At any rate his embarrassment was great enough to preclude retribution against the likeliest of the usual suspects.

That's both more and less than you asked for about the cabins, I know, and I make no absolute claims to accuracy although what I mentioned seems vivid in memory to me. You're welcome to whatever parts interest you. Best wishes on your project -- it was interesting to see your site.

Brian