The story we’d like to tell you is that of Beta, the university’s first mascot. A black- and-white mutt who turned up one morning at the front porch of the Beta house, the dog loved beer and hamburgers. He became such a beloved campus presence that when a car ran him over, on April 6, 1939, 1,000 people attended his funeral. The dean of the college gave the eulogy. When a new dog turned up on campus in the 1940s, he somehow became the new mascot. Seal, as he was named, traveled with the football team, and once elicited swooning from Virginia’s fans when they watched him pee on Penn’s side at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. When Seal died on December 11, 1953, 1,500 showed up to pay their respects at his funeral. Both Beta and Seal are buried at the UVA cemetery, and are the only non-humans to be so.
When the last plots were sold in 1966, there was still sufficient demand to create more berths for more human bodies. In 1987, the Board of Visitors approved new walls, each containing 180 vaults. The first one is sold out, but the second, completed in 2003, still has niches available in its columbarium, “a sepulchral vault or other structure with recesses in the walls to receive the ashes of the dead.”
Social scientists are still mulling over this trend. For our rootless, transient society, returning to one’s alma mater is returning to “the closest thing they’ve had to a real community in their lives,” says one. On a more practical note, some campuses regard the burgeoning burial business to be a new way of raising money.
Considering the renewed popularity of inviting one’s prep school’s or college’s marching band to perform their school’s fight song during funerals even outside the walls of academe, perhaps this is just the thing. But since preppies have so much of their own community (and that’s not counting places like Squirrel Hill), will this be our future? Most important, this will help our grandchildren be admitted.
If you are beginning to see the white light and you have dachshunds, we recommend you get in touch immediately with madcap anthropologist/dachshund fanatic Iris Love (see), who inherited Brooke Astor’s two, Boysie and Girlsie.
Otherwise, let’s put our heads together. Leaving your pooch(es) a $12 million trust fund, as Leona Helmsley did, is not only selfish, it becomes her headline for all eternity: “Queen of Mean Loves Trouble” (her Maltese). You don’t want an heirdog, but you do want to ensure that your darling pets have a good life after you are … you know.
Do your dogs love someone else (obviously, not as much as you, but) almost as much as they love you? Is there any reason not to talk to this person about your pets and suss out whether he or she would want the responsibility for taking care of your dog at home? If said person happens to be a personal employee, you must establish a fund through which he or she can support the animal and/or upgrade their home so Henry has a room or space of his own. And if it’s a friend, you should offer this friend something for taking such loving care of Henry.
Just be grateful you don’t have an African Grey (parrot), which has an average life span of about sixty years.
Asleep, be taken, bought the farm, called to a higher place, crossed over, danced the last dance, departed, diagnostic misadventure of high magnitude, entered the slumber room, expended, expired, extinction of the person, faded quickly, failed to fulfill his/her wellness potential, gathered to his people, going into the fertilizer business, going to the big place in the sky, gone, gone to a better place, gone to meet their Maker, gone to be with the Lord, gone to sleep, got his wings, heaven-bound, in a better place, in heaven/hell, in a kinder gentler place, in repose, joined the choir invisible, kicked the bucket, late, left us, lay down with one’s fathers, living-impaired, lost, metabolic processes are now history, negative patient-care outcome, no longer with us, no more, off the twig, paid Charon’s fare, passed away/on/over, popped off, promoted to Sub-Terranean Truffle Inspector, returned to the ground, rode off into the sunset, shuffled off the mortal coil, six feet under, sprouted wings, stiff, succumbed, sustained a therapeutic misadventure, taken from us, taking a dirt nap, that good night, took his/her last breath, T.U. (Toes Up), wandering the Elysian Fields, went to the big blue baseball field/shopping mall in the sky, whacked, with the ancestors, and worm food.
Dead.
November 19, 1980
Brooke Shields purrs, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins,” which prompts CBS to ban the Dwight-Englewood graduate’s racy Calvin Klein commercials.
November 22, 1980
Melina Mercouri attends Harvard/Yale game in Cambridge, Massachusetts, “for some reason.” (Technically, the stadium is in the Allston neighborhood of Boston.)
January 4, 1981
The Official Preppy Handbook hits #1 on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list and stays on the list for sixty-five weeks.
January 22, 1981
Judge Robert Kendall issues a decision supporting practices at the Bohemian Club—California’s elite male club famous for its summer outings at its “encampment” on 2,400 acres in Monte Rio, California, where valets serve, but bathrooms are the Great Outdoors. Members included Walter Cronkite, Robert Kennedy, David Rockefeller, William Hearst, American presidents Eisenhower, Reagan, Ford, Taft, Hoover, the Roosevelts, and Nixon. Current members are Rummy, Kissinger, George Shultz, Colin Powell, the Bushes, David Rockefeller Jr., and Christopher Buckley (his daddy was a member). The club did not allow any women (including employees), noting that club members at the Grove “urinate in the open without even the use of rudimentary toilet facilities” and that the presence of females would alter club members’ behavior.
September 14, 1981
Michelle Robinson (Obama) starts classes at Princeton.
October 17, 1981
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing countered the Kendall ruling by ordering the Bohemian Club to begin recruiting and hiring women as employees.
February 1, 1982
Lisa Henson, daughter of muppeteer Jim, becomes the first female president of the Harvard Lampoon.
October 16, 1982
Williams College ends maid service.
December 13, 1982
Martha Stewart, a relatively unknown caterer from Westport, Connecticut, publishes her first book, Entertaining, with Clarkson Potter.
January 1983
The first copy of a new catalogue, called J.Crew, is in the mail.
May 30, 1983
John F. Kennedy Jr. graduates from Brown University, quite possibly the first time he is photographed with a shirt on.
September 26, 1983
Day of Preppy Infamy—United States loses its first ever defense of the America’s Cup to Australia after 132 years. American skipper Dennis Conner is shamed.
February 25, 1984
Amherst College administration announces that fraternities will be abolished at the college.
April 23, 1984
Choate Rosemary Hall upperclassman Derek Oatis attempts to smuggle $300,000 worth of cocaine, bought with students’ money, upon return from trip to Venezuela and is arrested at Kennedy Airport. Fourteen students are expelled.
November 1984
Christie Brinkley’s Playboy cover appears, solves decorating problems at Portsmouth Abbey’s dorms.
June 28, 1985
Post-college preppy life is explained in St. Elmo’s Fire, released today.
September 1985
Lawrenceville School, founded in 1810 as Maidenhead Academy, refounded as Lawrenceville School in 1883, votes to admit girls. John Gore, director of alumni relations, explains that it took until September 1987 to get women on campus because they had to build housing, locker rooms, and restrooms, update facilities, and so on.
November 12, 1985
Dodge Morgan sails Friendship 40 designer Ted Fontaine’s boat, American Harbour, from Bermuda to Bermuda, breaking the single-handed nonstop circumnavigation record. His journey takes 150 days, one hour, and six minutes, finishing on April 11, 1986.
April 21, 1986
Ralph Lauren opens his new “fl
agship” store in the landmark Rhinelander mansion on Madison Avenue and 72nd Street in Manhattan. Built by architects Kimball & Thompson in 1898, the French Renaissance Revival building cost Lauren somewhere between $14 and $35 million to renovate. He leases the building; however, he owns the antiques.
August 26, 1986
Robert Chambers, a 200-pound 6’4" tall wastrel who attended St. David’s, Choate, Browning, York Prep, a year of Boston University, and Hazelden, meets eighteen-year-old Jennifer Levin at Dorrian’s Red Hand, an Upper East Side bar that caters to the children of the well-heeled. Later that night, the two walk into Central Park together. Jennifer’s body was found the next day; she had been strangled. Thereafter it was known as “The Preppy Murder” (thanks a lot). Despite good looks and a promising start, Chambers continues to serve time in prison for a seemingly endless series of crimes, both on the outside and the inside.
November 21, 1986
The California Supreme Court strikes down the ban over hiring women at the Bohemian Club and, denying a further review in 1987, forces the Club to begin hiring female workers during the summer encampment at the Grove in Monte Rio. This ruling became quoted as a legal precedent and was discussed during the 1995–1996 floor debate surrounding California Senate Bill SB 2110, a proposed bill concerning whether tax- exempt organizations (including fraternal clubs) should be exempt from the Unruh Civil Rights Act.
February 4, 1987
Disgraced America’s Cup skipper “Dirty Dennis” Conner and the crew of Stars & Stripes win back the America’s Cup in Fremantle, Australia, in a demonstration of prep defiance.
June 1987
In Palm Beach, the Breakers Hotel begins to repeal its jackets-and-ties-after-five rule in their lobby as it becomes harder to force guests to dress for dinner.
July 11, 1987
Martha Stewart writes Weddings.
October 19, 1987
“Black Monday.” Stock Market Crashes, trust funds/inheritances take a major hit.
May 29, 1989
Nantucket Nectar founders Tom First and Tom Scott graduate from Brown University. That summer they begin a delivery service in Nantucket Harbor: “everything from newspapers to laundry.” By 1990, they began selling “Peach Nectar,” something they accidentally made while trying to mix the perfect after-work cocktail.
July 27, 1989
The New York Athletic Club announces that it is voluntarily ending its two-year legal battle to keep women out. Forevermore, men must wear bathing suits in the swimming pool.
September 12, 1989
Deerfield Academy, founded in 1797, alma mater of former Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau, author John McPhee, poet John Ashbery, Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes, actor Matthew Fox, and King Abdullah of Jordan, readmits girls for the first time since 1943, when headmaster Frank Boyden canceled coeducation.
November 1, 1989
John F. Kennedy Jr. fails the New York Bar exam for the first time.
January 1, 1990
Senator Claiborne Pell, a preppy till the end, dies.
February 1990
Banana Republic begins to transform itself from a safari clothier to a young, urban preppy emporium, filled with all the colors from grey to putty.
March 26, 1990
Tom Schulman, Montgomery Bell Academy (Nashville) ’68, wins the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Dead Poets Society (also nominated for Best Picture 1989).
May 1, 1990
John F. Kennedy Jr. fails the New York Bar exam for the second time.
July 1990
Daughter of Park Avenue Vera Wang goes into trade. (Fortunately, it’s a bridal salon at the hotel Carlyle.)
July 24, 1990
After failing the New York Bar exam twice, JFK Jr. takes the exam for the third time.
July 26, 1990
JFK Jr. takes the Connecticut Bar exam “just in case,” as it is reported to be easier than New York’s test.
September 1990
Alexandra Miller, youngest of the three socialite daughters of Robert (Duty-Free Shoppers) Miller, begins classes at Brown.
November 2, 1990
It is confirmed that JFK Jr. passes the Connecticut Bar exam.
November 3, 1990
It is confirmed that JFK Jr. passes the New York Bar exam.
January 1991
T. Anthony begins manufacturing leather CD cases, and monograms them at no extra charge.
March 6, 1991
Bret Easton Ellis publishes American Psycho. It becomes an instant prep cult classic.
March 29–30, 1991
Senator Ted Kennedy and his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, embark on a boys’ night out at Au Bar, Palm Beach, which ends, as things do—increasingly—in a courtroom. A twenty-nine-year-old woman Smith met at the bar claims she was raped by the younger Kennedy. Despite testimony from three other women who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by him, Smith is eventually acquitted of the crime.
January 1993
The Lilly Pulitzer company is revived by Scott Beaumont and James Bradbeer Jr., two Pennsylvania businessmen. Lilly Pulitzer is now sold in 75 signature stores and 178 doors (253 locations total). (Lilly’s sisters were Mary Maude [called Memsey] and Florence Fitch [Flossie].)
June 1993
Eighteen-year-old Shoshanna Lonstein graduates from Nightingale-Bamford School; her thirty-nine-year-old boyfriend, Jerry Seinfeld, celebrates with her.
September 4, 1993
Martha Stewart Living, the domestic goddess’ own syndicated TV show, is scheduled to launch today. The topics in the episode include potato latkes, succulents in a stone wall, and decorating napkins.
December 8, 1994
Kerry Washington stars in “ABC Afterschool Special” Magical Make-Over in her senior year at the Spence School.
January 1995
The Frick Museum begins to quietly rent out its space for private parties (the program officially starts in 2006).
August 2, 1996
Gwyneth Paltrow (Spence ’90) does not require coaching in piano playing or archery for her work in the film Emma, which opens today.
September 21, 1996
At the First African Baptist Church on Cumberland Island, off Georgia, JFK Jr. —prepdom’s sexiest male—marries Carolyn Bessette under a veil of secrecy. By the time Mr. and Mrs. John F. Kennedy Jr. arrive at their reception at the Greyfield Inn, millions of women’s dreams are shattered.
April 13, 1997
Tiger Woods wins his first Masters and receives his kelly-green blazer just like those once worn by waiters in the Florentine Room at The Breakers.
December 1997
Due to pesky airbag regulations, the last Land Rover Defender, beloved summer vehicle of Nantucket/MV, is sold in the United States. (They are still available overseas.)
February 1998
The seven remaining Mark Cross leather goods stores close, after a four-year attempt by Sara Lee Corp. to rescue the brand. Founded in 1846 in Boston, it was run from 1934 to 1956 by Gerald Murphy, the grandson of its owner, whose life inspired Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night.
September 1998
The Hill School, founded in 1851 in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and alma mater of James Baker (Secretary of State, Secretary of Treasury, and presidential Chief of Staff), Harry Hamlin (actor), James Cromwell (actor), Robert Horchow (the Horchow catalogue), Norman Pearlstine (former EIC, Time Inc.), Oliver Stone (rogue film director), and the sons of Donald Trump, admits females.
July 16, 1999
John F. Kennedy Jr. is killed in plane crash off Martha’s Vineyard; an incredulous world mourns.
October 19, 1999
Martha Stewart Omnimedia goes public at the New York Stock Exchange. Ms. Stewart becomes a paper billionaire that day.
June 2000
Midnight Farm begins selling hand-painted clogs—which originated in Sweden and were worn by hippies in the ’60s—and are now bought by sixty-year-old hippies on Martha’s Vineyard.
> July 15, 2000
Filmmaker Alex Jones and a cameraman sneak into the Bohemian Grove with a hidden camera.
June 7, 2001
First regular-season Major League Lacrosse game is played, as Baltimore defeats Long Island 16–13.
November 23, 2001
Smith & Hawken opens its forty-fifth store, in Deer Park, Illinois.
November 29, 2001
Lifelong Brooks Brothers customer, Italian businessman Claudio Del Vecchio, acquires Brooks Brothers from Marks & Spencer, pledging to rescue it after years of British neglect.
October 3, 2002
Martha Stewart resigns from the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange.
December 30, 2002
Mayor Bloomberg signs a law banning indoor smoking in New York City.
February 21, 2003
The Guardian announces that Chelsea Clinton is headed to McKinsey, where she will work with other preppies.
March 30, 2003
Mayor Bloomberg’s smoking ban takes effect in New York City.
June 4, 2003
Martha Stewart is found guilty of obstruction of justice.
October 28, 2003
Mark Zuckerberg invents Facemash while attending Harvard as a sophomore. The site represented a Harvard University version of Hot or Not, according to The Harvard Crimson. That night, Zuckerberg was blogging about a girl who had dumped him and trying to think of something to do to get her off his mind.
January 2004
Zuckerberg begins writing code for a new Web site, which eventually becomes Facebook. In March the site opens to Stanford, Columbia, and Yale, and gradually extends to all Ivies, Boston-area schools, and ultimately all universities, and even nursing homes.
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