Rusty Post Reunites with the Yale Whiffenpoofs

By Russell Post

On Monday, September 19, 2011, I will be headed back to Lee, Massachusetts where I will meet at the Bart Miller house with other close friends, together once again; all of us now well into our seventies.

I find it extraordinary that all of us can meet and re-create that special bond that began years ago and has now survived for more than 54 years. Who would have thought …

It all began for me in the spring of 1957 when I was a Junior at Yale.

The Whiffenpoofs of Yale in 1958, Rusty Post is seated third from the left.

There are many singing groups at Yale, more than at any other college in the country, I believe, and the Yale Glee Club of over 60 men was and is world famous. Singing there, though not a reason why I chose to go to Yale, is big … huge. But none of those groups compare to the Whiffenpoofs. I wanted to be one of the 12 – always just seniors.

It was the night when 12 members, and only 12 classmates of our class of 1000 would be tapped by seniors to sing as Whiffenpoofs during our senior year, a custom that had continued since the Whiffs were first organized in 1909, now well over 100 years ago, and it continues to this day.

The Whiffenpoofs of 1958 in 2005. Rusty Post is seated third from the left

I sang in one of Yale’s other singing groups first as a freshman and later became its leader, so I was eligible, qualified, hopeful, anxious and really nervous. I was, like many others, sure to be in my room so the outgoing Whiffs could find me, if they wanted to, when they selected their successors.

There are no tryouts. Being the best singer in a class is no guaranty of being chosen. A great singer who is a nerd, just like a great guy who cannot hold a tune, would be a disaster.  The outgoing seniors know that, they know who among the juniors can both sing and be part of a group that will spend time together every day for over a year. And that makes it all the harder to guess who will and who will not be chosen.

Sometime around 9 p.m., the outgoing Whiffs left Mory’s Bar on Temple Street and wandered the Yale campus singing and gathering friends until well over a hundred came to Fritz’s door who, by being the first selected would become the musical leader of the new group – the “Pitchpipe” so called. Word quickly spread all over campus that Fritz was a Whiff and I learned about his selection within moments.“It’s Fritz. He’s the first.”

Then the second, third and fourth. It was easy to hear them as the crowd grew and the shouts went up, louder and louder. Now over two hundred people and increasing rapidly.

Fifth, sixth, seventh. It has always been the custom that the last to be “tapped” to join the Whiffs would become the leader of the group and having been a member of and later leader of one of those other groups, there was the outside possibility that I would be chosen last and therefore automatically the leader of the Whiffs, always known as the “Popocatepetl” or “Popo.”  So I waited with friends and roommates, and hoped, and waited, and waited.

Eighth and Ninth were selected and then Tim came into our room. He, a senior, was the roommate of one of the current Whiffs and he lived in a room right below ours. For weeks, he had needled and kidded me, telling me not to worry, I was shoe-in, a slam dunk, I would, of course, be a Whiff. But this night he had a long face and spoke in broken sentences:“I’m so sorry.  I was sure … I just learned tonight that you won’t be … Rusty … I don’t know why … I just had to come and let you know how badly I feel … I never would have teased you if I … ”

He left and my hopes left with him. I was devastated.

Ten and eleven came and when the cheers went up for number twelve, it was over. The 12 new Whiffs had been chosen and I was not one of them. I had no overwhelming expectation of being selected, just hope.

Though I sang solos since I was eight years old, and also sang as a member of our school choir with the Boston Symphony, I knew that mine was a good, but not an extraordinary voice. And, I was young, not just in years. I wasn’t one of the guys who enjoyed going out for a beer late at night or one who could tell great stories of my escapades, so maybe I just didn’t fit the mold.

I was down, way down.

The singing continued, as expected, as the old Whiffs and the new Whiffs careened around Yale and then, all of a sudden, the sound was louder, at least I thought it was louder, and then closer. As my heart beat out of control, hundreds of “Yalies”  were now in the courtyard of Calhoun where my roommates and I lived … then at our entry … then at my door. But they already had the 12, so was I to became 13 – it would have been a rare decision, a break from tradition but it was just fine with me. It meant that they had decided to honor me as the leader so if selected, I would become the Popo immediately. There were hundreds and hundreds now, singing in our room and out in the courtyard: “It’s Rusty,it’s Rusty, it’s Rusty makes the world go round ….” And then in the door they came. Huge smiles, handshakes and hugs. They knew what they were doing, they knew what they had done to me, and they certainly knew what Tim had said before and what he said to me earlier that night. No complaints from me.

Our senior year was one long extra-ordinary time. We sang every day and performed several times every week, traveling aound the country and spending a week at the invitation of Castle Rock in Bermuda. We were good and got better every time we sang together. No egos. No conflicts. No weirdos. No clashes. No cliques.

We sang again at our graduation at the end of the school year in 1958 for what we thought might be the last time ever. We knew that within a few days we were headed off to Europe and Eastern Europe where we would sing in numerous countries including Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

We knew we were going behind the Iron Curtain but we didn’t know we would see tanks on every street corner and once there, we added side trips to the concentration camps of World War II. Having reveled in our hundreds of performances for audiences of thousands, stepping inside those concentration camps created memories that we all will remember for the rest of our lives.

Then we came back to the U.S. and went our separate ways, always keeping in touch but never able to get all 13 of us together at the same time in the same place.

One nightmare. We had three superb basses in our group, and one of them was out of touch. Despite emails and telephone calls, we never were able to reach him. My assumption and that of most of the others was that he had died but we could never confirm that. As we approached our 25th reunion, we tried harder and harder to get word to him but to no avail. So, at best, we would be 12.

For so many reasons the absence of one of us was painful and we didn’t even know what had happened to him.

A week before our 25th, I had a phone call from one of our 12. “Rusty,” he said. “He is not dead.

“I was walking down the streets of Philadelphia when there he was, sitting down on a street. He had become a street person. And, he really wants to come back to be with us at Yale, wants to be part of our reunion.”

So, back he came to Yale with a whole new set of clothes. It meant that we were 13, we were whole, we were excited to have him with us, we were blessed.

How many groups of 13 graduate from college and are all still alive and well 25 years later. It’s pretty special.

In addition, our reunion went into the record books. More of our classmates returned for our 25th reunion, more than had ever returned for any other class for their 25th reunion.

We all decided that we would come back to Yale several days before the official opening of our reunion. We gathered at St. Anthony’s as we had every day during our senior year. We hugged, cried, laughed and sang once again, standing around the same piano as before. Then we realized, as we sang our first song together, that our voices were richer, our blend was superb (it always had been), and our sound was fabulous. I think we were better than ever. So did everyone else, whether they were in the Whiffs or not.

We had a class dinner scheduled for Friday night of the reunion weekend at “The Commons” – a huge hall large enough for 1000 freshman to eat all of their meals in that hall and we had at least that many people that night. Halfway through dinner, classmates began to stomp and clamor for us to sing even though not scheduled for Friday. We didn’t care, we wanted to sing for them all, and so we did. Standing on two of the huge tables we sang a song and then all hell broke loose. They wouldn’t stop so we sang another, and another, and another.

Word spread. There were 8 or 10 other classes having their reunions on the same weekend and they all learned right away what had happened on Friday night. So many of those from other classes joined us Saturday night where we were scheduled to sing at Woolsey Hall. A classmate of ours who served as the Director of Operations for Yale, removed every one of the seats in Woolsey Hall so we could sing for over 6,000 people rather than the normal maximum of 3,500.

Every time I remember that night, I feel the chills run down my back, even now. We were as good as we had ever been — the timing, the dynamics, the blend, the sound. Our classmates and others just stood and cheered and cried.  When the time came to end our performance, having added one song after another, we sang the Whiffenpoof song to a silent throng and then I invited the whole audience to join us as we sang the Whiffenpoof Song again.  All 13 of us, the original group, swayed back and forth and clapped our hands to our audience for all those who had come to join us throughout our performances over the years.

Although that 25th reunion will always be burned in my memory, all 13 of us did meet again.

A few years ago, when Bart turned 70, all 13 of us came together again at the Miller house in Lee, the place where we first met at the end of our junior year. There was a lot of hugging and a lot of “I love you.”  We performed for a very select group of about 100 or so family members and friends and they went crazy.

And then, most of us met again at our 50th reunion in 2008 and while that whole event was superb, not all of us were there. All 13 still alive but only 11 or 12 joined us at Yale for that event.

And so once again I am heading back to the east coast for a reunion with my beloved comrades in song, the Whiffenpoofs of 1958  –  all 13 of us. Who knows if this may be the last time? Someday, it will be.