Originally published Oct. 12, 2008
By Susan Lampert Smith
Chicago area radiologist Dr. Barry Lessin dresses in scrubs, not bed sheets, when he sees patients at Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare.
But to his UW-Madison classmates, he’ll always be “Dr. Toga.”
He’s coming back to campus the last week of October for Homecoming, which also coincides with the 25th reunion of his medical school class and is 30 years after the inaugural campus toga party.
Inspired by the summer hit movie “National Lampoon’s Animal House,’’ students held dozens of toga parties on campuses in the fall of 1978. But none was larger than the one in Lot 60 along the southern shore of Lake Mendota.
And Lessin had a lot to do with that.
Lessin, a Milwaukee native, was an undergraduate at UW-Madison in the fall of 1978, and helped the prank-pulling Pail and Shovel party win election. The year marked a generational divide on the campus, which was scarred after years of anti-Vietnam War protests. Pail and Shovel launched an era when students were more party animals than political animals.
Pail and Shovel pledged to turn student fees into pennies, and give every student a pail and a shovel to help themselves.
Once elected, they spent money as fast as they could, on such things as a giant Statue of Liberty head embedded in the ice of Lake Mendota (an homage to the final scene of “Planet of the Apes”), a Little Feat concert and hundreds and hundreds of pink plastic flamingos, which greeted students on the first day of classes in 1979.
But one of the first stunts was the Toga Party. Lessin said he and his Sigma Alpha Mu brothers approached the zany student leaders, who gleefully approved it. Dean of Students Paul Ginsberg wasn’t so sure.
“I went to the Dean of Students, and asked, ‘Why not?’ ’’ Lessin recalled. “They were so fearful and distrusting of students then.”
But the dean eventually agreed, and even came to the party. And so did an estimated 10,000 to 13,000 students, all dressed in their bed sheets.
“It was huge,’’ Lessin said. “No one expected a crowd like that.”
In the coming months, Lessin would emcee the Pail and Shovel stages at the big Halloween party, at the Mifflinland on the Mall party (a year the Mifflin Street Block Party moved temporarily to campus) and at subsequent toga parties. At the last toga party, in 1983, he had returned from his radiology residency in Hawaii with yards of tropical fabric for togas.
“I was billed as ‘Dr. Toga from Hawaii,’ “ said Lessin, who still uses “Dr.Toga” in his email address.
For Homecoming, Lessin has hired Count Bop and the Headliners to entertain his medical school class of 1983; the band is a revival of a popular 1970s band, Dr. Bop and the Headliners.
He says his class has always been “smart, fun and full of life.” But with the 25th reunion and the 30th birthday of the toga party, he has to admit they aren’t wild and crazy youngsters anymore.
“We used to laugh at the old alumni coming back to campus,’’ he says. “Now, we are them. Or, they are us!”
But to his UW-Madison classmates, he’ll always be “Dr. Toga.”
He’s coming back to campus the last week of October for Homecoming, which also coincides with the 25th reunion of his medical school class and is 30 years after the inaugural campus toga party.
Inspired by the summer hit movie “National Lampoon’s Animal House,’’ students held dozens of toga parties on campuses in the fall of 1978. But none was larger than the one in Lot 60 along the southern shore of Lake Mendota.
And Lessin had a lot to do with that.
Lessin, a Milwaukee native, was an undergraduate at UW-Madison in the fall of 1978, and helped the prank-pulling Pail and Shovel party win election. The year marked a generational divide on the campus, which was scarred after years of anti-Vietnam War protests. Pail and Shovel launched an era when students were more party animals than political animals.
Pail and Shovel pledged to turn student fees into pennies, and give every student a pail and a shovel to help themselves.
Once elected, they spent money as fast as they could, on such things as a giant Statue of Liberty head embedded in the ice of Lake Mendota (an homage to the final scene of “Planet of the Apes”), a Little Feat concert and hundreds and hundreds of pink plastic flamingos, which greeted students on the first day of classes in 1979.
But one of the first stunts was the Toga Party. Lessin said he and his Sigma Alpha Mu brothers approached the zany student leaders, who gleefully approved it. Dean of Students Paul Ginsberg wasn’t so sure.
“I went to the Dean of Students, and asked, ‘Why not?’ ’’ Lessin recalled. “They were so fearful and distrusting of students then.”
But the dean eventually agreed, and even came to the party. And so did an estimated 10,000 to 13,000 students, all dressed in their bed sheets.
“It was huge,’’ Lessin said. “No one expected a crowd like that.”
In the coming months, Lessin would emcee the Pail and Shovel stages at the big Halloween party, at the Mifflinland on the Mall party (a year the Mifflin Street Block Party moved temporarily to campus) and at subsequent toga parties. At the last toga party, in 1983, he had returned from his radiology residency in Hawaii with yards of tropical fabric for togas.
“I was billed as ‘Dr. Toga from Hawaii,’ “ said Lessin, who still uses “Dr.Toga” in his email address.
For Homecoming, Lessin has hired Count Bop and the Headliners to entertain his medical school class of 1983; the band is a revival of a popular 1970s band, Dr. Bop and the Headliners.
He says his class has always been “smart, fun and full of life.” But with the 25th reunion and the 30th birthday of the toga party, he has to admit they aren’t wild and crazy youngsters anymore.
“We used to laugh at the old alumni coming back to campus,’’ he says. “Now, we are them. Or, they are us!”
PHOTO INFORMATION: More than 10,000 students and others gathered in Lot 60 at UW-Madison for a Toga Party in 1978./PHOTO courtesy UW-Madison Archives
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