Since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 and John F. Kennedy '40, both Crimson editors, Harvard had developed a reputation for breeding the future leaders of Eastern establishment. Its students were channeled into leadership positions in government, business and media.

The most prominent feature of this network at Harvard was the final clubs, where members would get together for a drink or a meal and chat amiably.

Most Harvard students felt clubs were esoteric, preppy organizations way behind the times, according to Parry.

"I disdained all that stuff," Parry says. "My prejudices were that it was a bunch of rich kids fairly narrow-minded and too conservative for my tastes."

However, after being egged on by his roommates, who were getting tired of his complaints about the clubs, Parry attended a function at the A.D.

And his perspective changed.

"I liked it. It was a very eclectic group. So I joined," he says.

In Parry's first years, the final clubs were not a major factor in the campus social scene like they are today, he says.

"They were not on anyone's radar screen," he says. "It was very secretive. We didn't talk about it."

They were so secretive, in fact, that for two of Parry's years at Harvard, the A.D. had not been able to fill the quota of members.

By his senior year, though, Parry says the final clubs had "made a return."

Like the rest of Harvard, the final clubs had adjusted to the changes in the composition of Harvard's student body. Parry says he was the first Jewish member of the A.D.; while he was there, the first black students were admitted as well.

And as the spirit of revolution left and Harvard "mellowed out," the social scene began to become a major part of student life.

In a poll taken by the Class of '74's 25th Reunion Committee, 26 percent of respondents said that, during college, they consumed alcohol either "quite a bit" or "too much." Including those that drank "occasionally" for social reasons, the number jumps to 92 percent.

The percentage of respondents that said they smoked or had casual sex "quite a bit" or "too much" was 13, but with coffee and recreational drugs the percentages were 47 and 23, respectively.