A cantankerous elderly man wandering around the Main Green yesterday said repeatedly that he was the chancellor of the University and Ruth Simmons' boss, and not - as many assumed him to be - the cranky, ornery grandfather of Herald News Editor Tyler Blodgett '10.
"Y'hear about how this ol' funny farm is fixin' to raise a billion dollars?" the old man said to no one in particular, scratching his ear vigorously. "It's cause they have a damn nincompoop for a president, that's why."
Blodgett, who was walking alongside the old man, nodded and feigned interest in the words of his curmudgeonly grandfather.
The University's chancellor, Thomas Tisch '76, is the managing partner of Four Partners, a private investment firm, and is assumed to be an important businessman of some kind who, when he does come to Brown, will most likely not be a man who refuses to remove a inexpensive grey wool cap from his head under any circumstances. An assistant at his New York office said Tisch was out of town and not available for comment.
"I'm the one who wears the trousers at this place, don't you hear?" the old man, who identified himself as Thomas Tisch but refused to give his real name, said. "Maybe you'd like to have a ... a soda fountain or a roller-skating gymnasium sprout up on the quadrangle, but not so long as I'm still kicking."
