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Football fans elsewhere tend to have a condescending attitude toward the game as played in the Ivy League, and from the standpoint of sheer athletic excellence perhaps they are right; but I have been going to the Dartmouth-Princeton game since I was about six years old and it has become a permanent part of my November mental landscape. This year I once again made the long trip down to Princeton from Hanover, N.H.

During the Thirties and Forties, my father, a fanatical Dartmouth alumnus, used to take us down to Princeton from New York for the game. The special train from Penn Station had its own distinctive atmosphere—uproarious, highly liquid, conspicuously affluent—and before you knew it the train pulled into Princeton Junction.

About the Author

Jeffrey Hart

Jeffrey Hart is a contributor to National Review.

Football fans elsewhere tend to have a condescending attitude toward the game as played in the Ivy League, and from the standpoint of sheer athletic excellence perhaps they are right; but I have been going to the Dartmouth-Princeton game since I was about six years old and it has become a permanent part of my November mental landscape. This year I once again made the long trip down to Princeton from Hanover, N.H.

During the Thirties and Forties, my father, a fanatical Dartmouth alumnus, used to take us down to Princeton from New York for the game. The special train from Penn Station had its own distinctive atmosphere—uproarious, highly liquid, conspicuously affluent—and before you knew it the train pulled into Princeton Junction.