The horses were the Budweiser Clydesdales, and the class had to be 1959. In the days of the old P-rade route the classes formed up somewhere around the intersection of Nassau Street and University Place, and the P-rade was led down Nassau Street to the gates at Nassau Hall by the Budweiser Clydesdales pulling the Budweiser wagon. The first class in line then, as now, was the 25th reunion. At the gates the horses proceeded on, and the class picked up its band to lead it through the campus.

The headline comes from my discovery at my 25th. Prior to that we had been preceded by the 25th, and then the older classes, and by the time we got on the road many feet had cleaned it. We discovered in the 1982 P-rade that a team of very large horses leaves a rather messy roadway.

I don't remember when the Budweiser wagon stopped being a part of the P-rade or when the routing changed. Nor do I remember if it was political correctness or the demands of the townsfolk that caused it. The old route went across the campus and turned left rather than right at the crosswalk above Whig/Clio. It passed below the Chapel and out through '79 Arch and crossed Washington Road onto Prospect Street and ended at Poe Field.

I think we can guess that when the sleepy town of Princeton became a bustling community, they didn't like the traffic stoppages on Washington Road or the horses on Nassau Street.