This paper originated in a humble desire to introduce into college life a little spice, to vary the monotony of those essays of a multifarious character, some economical, some critical, some philosophical, which characterize a college journal.

Thus opens issue one of The Alligator, Swarthmore’s first student publication, founded in 1887. As a statement of purpose, [...]

After almost three decades of boosting and shaping the enterprises of others—as a lawyer, business operator, and fundraiser—Dan Werther ’83 concluded that what he really wanted was to run his own business. So he bought Sorbee International—a company that began about 30 years ago as a small, sugar-free candy business. The first and largest supplier [...]

THE NAME AND THE STORY EVOKE A STIRRING CHAPTER FROM THE COUNTRY'S PAST. Good, patriotic Americans become fed up with a distant, out-of-touch, over-reaching tyrannical government. From a wellspring of discontent arises something wholly new and spontaneous, a broad-based popular uprising determined to throw the rascals out of power, like so much tea into Boston [...]

Craig Williamson compares the act of translation to a kind of dance with a partner from a different world. Each partner’s rhythms and expectations are different, yet they share a sense of rhythm. Both possess a brain and legs, enabling them to process music, rhythm, and movement. And each dances a different dance, driven by [...]

A FASHION SHOW IS A FAST THING, EXPERIENCED IN IMPRESSIONS. A tight black dress of perforated leather. Long, light, white jackets, silky and sheer or sleeveless. A puckered white belted dress with a black plastic buckle and black leather panels padding the shoulders. A pop of color: A tropical bird print, parrots and parakeets. Chunky [...]

What is Africa to me;
Copper sun or scarlet sea,
Jungle star or jungle track,
Strong bronzed men, or regal black
Women from whose loins I sprang
When the birds of Eden sang?
One three centuries removed
From the scenes his fathers loved,
Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
What is Africa to me?
—from “Heritage” by Countee Cullen (1903–1946), Harlem Renaissance poet
IN SUMMER 1971, MY GIRLFRIEND [...]

MARK! DO YOU WANT THESE ASPARAGUS? If you don’t take them, they’ll go bad,” says Tina Johnson. “Sure,” I reply, knowing that the asparagus had already endured a final round of weekly sales activity and, without refrigeration, probably wouldn’t last another week.
It was a year ago, and the end of my Saturday morning volunteer shift [...]

THEY'VE LIVED MANY PLACES—Europe and Canada, on the West Coast, and in New England—but Arthur and Carol Merten Upshur ’83 have always returned to the southern tip of Virginia’s Eastern Shore, where Upshurs have lived and worked for nearly 400 years.
“This is a longtime dream,” says Arthur of the small organic farm he and Carol [...]

IT IS NOT JUST WHETHER YOU ARE HUNGRY, BUT HOW. There are seven kinds of hunger, writes Jan Chozen Bays ’66, a pediatrician and Zen teacher, in her recent book, Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food. There is eye hunger, and there is nose hunger, motivated by the [...]

As the wine guy—“not sommelier, because that’s French”—at the internationally acclaimed Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, N.Y., John Fischer ’81 is used to hearing enthusiastic and grateful comments from clients who visit any of the institute’s five restaurants. But even he was surprised when a female diner jumped up from her table [...]