For my first meal at Brown, during the fall of 1964, I asked at the Ratfactory for a corned beef sandwich, and the meat came on buttered white bread. What a long, handsome way the dining rooms have come (“Pass the Gnocchi, Please,” September/October). Good one, Brown.

Michael Feld ’73 PhD
Vancouver, B.C.

feld@ms.umanitoba.ca

Over the last few issues, you’ve published a fair number of pictures of Brown students eating in several venues. In every case that I noticed, they were sitting there with their trays firmly in front of them, eating from the dishes still on the tray. This is not normal. Most non-Brown people, when approaching their table with a laden tray, will balance it precariously with one corner on the edge of the table and unload it with the other hand. They then look about surreptitiously and sneak the empty tray onto a vacant chair or table nearby. Brown diners, be they first-year or forty years past graduation, plunk the loaded tray down, sit, and begin to eat. I first noticed this when I was still dining in the Ratty under the watchful eye of Mrs. Feeny, and many more times in subsequent decades.

There may be a bit of altruism in play here; non-Brown people at the end of their meals no longer have their trays, and thus must leave their dirty dishes for the service staff. We, on the other hand, bus our trays as we were taught to do. Brown changes us in many ways.

Bob Munck ’67
Haymarket, Va.

munck@acm.org