CENTER OF TOWN–This weekend an old familiar face rolled into White Plaza: none other than beloved salesman and raconteur Harry Elam, sitting atop his horse-drawn cart and beaming from ear to ear. Local children were reported chasing his rickety wagon-laboratory, which sports the familiar logo “Harry Elam’s marvelouse scientifick wonders!”
According to reporters on the scene, the cart ground to a halt in front of The Claw as his horse, Alabaster Quincy Winthrop, whinnied restlessly. The smiles were just fading off the children’s faces when the door of the cart burst open, followed by a stream of fantastic fireworks.
A crowd gathered as the man himself, Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education Harry Elam, Stanford’s favorite bringer of scientific oddities, stepped valiantly out of the cart.
“Come one, come all!” said he, “Come see Harry Elam’s latest doodad brought from the East!”
“Marvelous, simply marvelous!” stated President John Hennessy, excitedly watching the scene. “Nothing in this world heralds the coming of spring quite like Dr. Elam’s winsome whirligigs!” Hennessy followed his statement with a contented sigh and a faraway smile.
All things good things, of course, must come to an end. Mere moments before revealing his Prussian weather contraption, Harry Elam produced a pocketwatch from his waistcoast and checked the time. Cries of shock and despair were heard as Elam’s eyes widening in hurried surprise.
The day ended at sunset with the townsfolk aligned along Palm Drive, waving wistfully as Harry Elam’s wagon disappeared on the orange horizon.