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2 [[newspaper article]] [[2 columns]] [[column 1]] having already passed into legend, existed a long time ago. ... WELL, Rowbottom, whose name has ironically become a synonym for violence when he was a peaceful student, is very much mortal. He's a big husky man and he cuts quite a figure on the golf course, which is one of his favorite haunts. He has brown eyes, set in a heavy, strong face; black hair, which is slicked back immaculately; and a voice that is deep and rough. His home is in Rockville Center, Long Island, some 20 miles east of Manhattan. He is a sales agent for the American Steel Foundries and has been with that firm since shortly after his graduation from Penn, where he studied engineering. He's married and has one son, who also went to Penn and lived there, surprisingly, in obscurity, an item not generally known. ... "HE DIDN'T have any trouble," Rowbottom said, telling of Joseph T., Jr., now a practicing dentist after service in the Navy. "But he lived on Chestnut st. And he was in graduate school. He had prepped at Colgate. Maybe that's why. Graduate schools are a little different." Joseph Jr., who has made the elder Rowbottom twice a grandfather, was graduated from the School of Dentistry in the spring of 1943. His Naval action was in the Pacific theater. "But that's getting away from Penn, isn't it?" Rowbottom asked from behind his desk. He took off his glasses and held them to his lips, thinking. ... "WELL now," he said, "let me go back a little bit for you. This thing is all linked up with the celebrations that are held anywhere before or after a game. These pep meetings and rallies prevailed long before rowbottoms ever started. "I recall in my freshman or sophomore year, one of our teams had gone to Michigan and beaten one of 'Hurry Up' Yost's best football teams. That was 1909 or 1910. "There was a celebration to be had after that. All the students went around West Philadelphia and gathered all the boxes and barrels you could think of. They brought them into the triangle there at the dorms. They piled them high. And they were going to burn them. ... [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] "IF THEY had lighted this pile--it stood about three stories high--it might have wrecked the dorms. "But Provost Smith--he was a loveable old gentleman--sent a notice out that he would like the student body not to light the wood. And the students didn't, although there was a lot of messing around in West Philadelphia. "The boys respected their leaders then. The upper classmen, too, maybe should take hold now. We rather respected upper classmen in my day, too." There had always been snake dances and rallies around the gymnasium (Rowbottom said he yelled, "Yeah, Hollenback" many times) and celebrations and "crockery smashes," he pointed out, "but the thing seems to have gotten more serious as the years went on. There is destruction of the other people's property and that's all wrong." ... THE "CROCKERY SMASH" was a unique celebration which occurred at the end of the school year. In ancient times the dormitories were not equipped with modern plumbing, and students were dependent on wash bowls and pitchers and the like. When there was to be no further need for these, they were tossed out the windows, making a loud clatter and a lot of excitement. "But this was just sort of a release," Rowbottom said, "because the students were anxious to go home. And it was limited to the inside of the dormitories. It didn't hurt the public. It was more or less a lot of fun." * * * WHAT became the Rowbottom in its exaggerated and exasperating form was apparently "predicated on the old crockery smash," Rowbottom guessed. Anyway, the night in 1910 in which his name became a rallying cry for mass disturbance was at the end of the year. It has been related at one time or another that Rowbottom started things, that he precipitated things by rushing to the aid of a roommate, and that he joined things once they were started. All of these are false reports, prompted by fading time and Rowbottom's own long silence. Actually, he lived alone in his room and he didn't do anything except speak. "If I ever said anything wrong in my life, that was the time, I guess," Rowbottom recalled today. * * * [[/column 2]]
