JUNE 5, 2026 – (Cont.) Jeff and I soon realized that there were bigger Maine lobsters to be trapped: faculty. We ramped up the “terror”/business plan accordingly. We now plastered campus—again, clandestinely—with mimeographed signs that read, “CREAM A PROF”. Our plug was simple:
*TAKE OUT A CONTRACT ON A PROFESSOR FROM ANY OF THE FOLLOWING DEPARTMENTS[1]:
– ECONOMICS.
– CHEMISTRY.
– PSYCH-SOC.
– LANGUAGE – INCLUDING CLASSICS.
The price was $25/head, and to drum up business among the thriftier sections of the student body, the sign encouraged people to “POOL YOUR RESOURCES.”
Phase II, as we called it, led to a surge in business. I’d inserted “INCLUDING CLASSICS,” because no pie-throwing operation would be complete until a pie had been served upon the face of the beloved and good-humored Professor Nate Dane II. Everyone wanted to get in on that action. Nate Dane knew this full well, of course, given his close ties with a great number of students. For protection, he retained our Class of ’76 football center, the late Dick Leavitt, as a bodyguard. Dick was the size of a large refrigerator with the density (neck down) of a giant bag of cement. If anybody got in his way, the anybody would be reduced to a crêpe faster than you could say “omega.” Nate’s most popular class, an introductory course on Greek and Roman mythology (“Gods for Jocks,” as it was known), opened at 8:00 a.m. in Smith Auditorium inside Sills Hall. a small theatre inside an old classroom building. For maximum effect, any “hit” carried out on Nate Dane would have to occur there, not in a small Latin or Greek class with only a dozen students on hand as witnesses.
A hit on Professor Dane produced significant challenges and required careful planning. Jeff and I called a meeting of our most decorated hitmen, including, JM, a pre-med student who was a football player and member of Dick Leavitt’s fraternity, Beta Theta Pi (one “cannot make that up,” as it is said)[2]. The hit team included two other veteran hitmen with pyro-technical finesse. A late night session produced the following plan:
- We’d order a real pie (most of our pies were whipped-cream pies served up on paper plates (with the hand-written reminder on the bottom of each plate—to the effect that all the nonsense was for a charitable cause (lest the victim get all ornery)) at a real bakery in Brunswick: apples, peaches, berries of all kinds, cream pudding, et cetera ad nauseam. The delivered product wound up weighing close to 10 pounds.
- Before anyone showed up for class, JM, armed with the pie of all pies, would take his place behind the heavy curtains on stage—just a few long strides from Nate Dane’s lectern, which faced the center of the auditorium. Dick Leavitt, our unwitting spies had informed us, was accustomed to sitting in the front row directly in front of the lectern.
- Five minutes or so into the class, the diversionary hitmen would enter the building, race down the hall to the back entrance doorways into Smith Auditorium. There, one hitman would light firecrackers and toss them into the back of the auditorium as the other hitman chased back and forth behind the back row of seats. When the diversion had everyone’s attention—most particularly, Dick Leavitt’s, JM would step out from the curtains, race-walk to a position behind Nate Dane, and then, reach around him with the pie in hand and pull it into Nate’s face. Upon seeing that the deed was done, the diversionary hitmen would then skedaddle to safety, and JM would fly backstage and out a rear exit, ski mask and googles in his wake—to be retrieved at a later time.
- By the time students—and Nate’s bodyguard—turned back around, Nate would have apples, peaches, cream pudding and pie crust falling from his face onto his lecture notes. And all would wonder, What just happened and HOW?
The operation went exactly as planned. We were on top of our game—if not yet back on top of our studies. (Cont.)
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© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
[1] We knew that the most popular profs—and the likely best sports about getting creamed by a pie—were to be found in specific departments. This was another strategy to avoid “tortious interference” litigation.
[2]The record would be incomplete without mention of my good friend Bernie Gallagher, Class of ’75, also a member of Beta Theta Pi and captain of the Bowdoin hockey team that earlier that spring had won the Division III Championship. Bernie had served with distinction as one of our better hitmen until in a dramatic escape following a smash hit, he skidded down a staircase in the Senior Center and broke his ankle. As it was said by many after the incident, “If that had happened before the end of the hockey season, Sid Watson [the coach] would have had a cow!” At the prank contest award ceremony, Bernie was awarded a “Purple Tart.” (B.P.T.O. did not win the contest, by the way. Our “prank” was considered too far outside the realm of the normal range of college pranks. We of the B.P.T.O. took that as a compliment and wore it as a Medal of Honor.) After graduating from Bowdoin later that spring, Bernie, a Canadian, attended medical school at McGill University and went on to a distinguished medical career, and in his retirement devoted considerable volunteer efforts in Central America.
