The annual physics picnic
Department Head Fred Seitz at the
1962 Physics Annual Picnic
Photo by
J.D. Jackson
courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Jackson Collection.
In The Loomis Legacy, Professor David Lazarus wrote:
Besides the off-hours parties for which the department was justly famous, specific departmental social functions were also taken as an important part of the department's responsibilities. We had weekly faculty luncheon meetings, simply to eat and talk together informally, not for any "official" purposes. There was always an annual student-staff party which was highlighted by outrageous skits written and performed by both the graduate students (dwelling on the foibles of the faculty) and the faculty (vice versa).
Each spring heralded the glorious annual departmental picnic where everyone associated with the department always came with spouses and children of all ages. There would be an annual softball game at which the graduate students would usually force the faculty to an inglorious defeat. There were always balloons for the children, filled, on the spot, with "surplus" helium from the low-temperature labs, and each weighted, via a careful design of Charlie Slichter's, with a heavy steel washer so that it could not float up and away from a small, weeping child.
There was a well-equipped playground for small children, complete with a hired supervisor, so that parents could indulge in more "adult" activities (like playing softball).