The prime ingredient for the crews was pride, some of it male macho pride, but much of it centered on the quality of our hut, our reputation. We took pride in handling a big crowd. Even now the question "what was it like back then?" produces my answer "our biggest night at Madison was when we served a roast beef dinner with Parker House rolls to a full hut of 60 guests".
Pride took many forms. It was of course the food. It was also a clean hut, blankets folded correctly, floors swept and tables wiped clean, a gaboon that didn’t overflow. In those days well before "carry in, carry out", all garbage and trash went into an open pit, a gaboon, excavated 100 to 200 yards to the north (at Madison), far enough to keep odors away from the hut and close enough so we could carry the stuff. When the gaboon was full we covered it with a layer of dirt and rock, then we excavated a new one.
Pride translated easily into reputation. Each hut had its reputation. For the most part they were good reputations. But from time to time guests would tell us about a hut with late meals or a hutmaster much more interested in a girl than in running the hut or being friendly to the guests. Then most of us really resented that hut, that hutmaster.
We had our well-established routine. For our four-man crew there was a regular rotation - one person to pack, one to cook, one to clean up and one on "days off"( 2 1/2 days every two weeks). This scheme pretty much continues today, though this past August Caitlin Hollister of the Greenleaf crew told me their packing had condensed into 2 or 3 of the crew doing it twice a week when fresh and frozen produce was shipped into the packhouse from Pinkham. And Phoebe Hazard told me her top load at Madison was 95 lbs. ( whereas my top load in 1939 was 80 lbs.)
Pride was strong in personal prowess. How much did you pack up the Valley Way? How fast did you go down? What’s the record time on a particular trail ? Malcolm McLane still holds the Bridle Path records, both up (42 minutes)  and down (17 minutes) between Greenleaf Hut and Franconia Notch ! (He also holds the record from Greenleaf up to the Lafayette summit and return - 22 minutes) Ben Cole claimed 50 minutes, with a load, from the Ravine House in Randolph ( a quarter mile across the field north from Appalachia Station) up the Valley Way to Madison. I "think" I went down the Valley Way to the RR track in 25 minutes, running all the way after 1,000 Yard Spring.
All of us admired H. L.  Malcolm who set the record going from the Carter Notch hut through every hut (including Pinkham) to Lonesome in 22 hrs. , 3 minutes. Then, pushed by his own inner pride, two weeks later he repeated the trip going over (instead of around) most of the the summits in 22 minutes less time.
Malcolm intrigued us. He was reputedly in his 50’s, ran a hotel in Florida, ran on the beach there every day, carefully planned his trail routes, his pace, his food supplies (drops) and he had a beautiful niece, Kay Daniels, who met him with food at specified  times and locations. All that  and none of us hutmen could come close to his record for the route. We never got a date with his niece either !
The crews in the 30’s lived in a macho male world. Women were welcome, especially pretty women of our age. And some did lots of work, as volunteers without pay. But no one thought of women on the crew. With one exception. As Bob Ohler tells it when he spoke at the 100th Anniversary Celebration at Madison in 1988 , "that was when Foochow Belcher came back from days off with a bride. She was Beth, and I had the privilege of attending their 50th anniversary celebration a few years ago. Beth stayed and became our mother, like Wendy in Peter Pan."
We welcomed girl’s camps ( which had girl counselors), and of course girl friends would occasionally visit. At Madison we knew a few connected with the Randolph Mountain Club whose names often in our banter got maligned by rhyming ( ie. "Charlotte the Harlot"). When present we would "favor" them with dishwashing or making up trail lunches. And behind the jokes and the housekeeping there often lurked the invitation to "go out to the Parapet to watch the moon rise."
While women were not a formal part of the hut operations in the ‘30’s, there were some notable characters. One was Jessie Whitehead, a Harvard librarian and well known climber. Bob Ohler recalls her showing up at Madison one day saying that she was on her way to Huntington Ravine to look for her ice axe which she lost the previous winter when she fell and broke her neck. Then there was Etha Dahlgren, a forceful woman of chunky build whom Joe Dodge christened “ Tin Britches”. Perhaps best known was Emily Klug, a German lady with very poor vision.  Perhaps because of the vision she was entirely self-sufficient when hiking. She did not carry a big pack.  Rather, as “Santa Claus” Lewis described her, “ when she got ready to go up the hill, she’d roll her skirt up around her middle and put in all kinds of provisions. She had a small rucksack for other possessions . . . slept (on the trail) at night with a half-sleeping bag . . . and carried a little German camera. Since she was very near-sighted, she read the guidebook, picked her spots to photograph, and then later in the winter saw what she had seen”
The work day was demanding. Escapades were the relief, the antidote. Mostly they were harmless and done at each other’s expense, or as in the case of Moldy Bear at the expense of our guests. My first escapade came early in my first summer at Pinkham. The Carter Notch crew (Charley Rogers and Schlitz Sargent) had made off with a 15 lb. slab of bacon. Al Folger and I, both brand new, decided to make our mark. So after dark we tiptoed up the 19 Mile Brook Trail, got to a lookout among the boulders near the hut. Then in whispers we exchanged a puzzled “ How do we get the bacon when both Charley and Schlitz are in the hut?” Suddenly Schlitz came boiling out the front door, poked around a bit with his flashlight, then raced back inside  calling (he had a bad stutter),  “CCCCChhhhharley, thhhhere’s a willlldddcat out here.” Out rushed both Charley and Schlitz. In dashed Folger and Stott. There lay the bacon on the counter. Swoop and back out—all in 60 seconds. They puzzled over that for weeks.
Of course some episodes crossed the line. I well-recall a 36 hour days-off with Parker Brownell. It started in Gorham where I pitched (poorly) for the Gorham baseball team, Then we picked up a case of beer and headed south. Stopping in Jackson, we decided Pinkham was inadequately described. So we headed back north gathering roadside signs as we went, then placed them strategically around Pinkham after midnight. Exhausted we crept into the bunkroom. Not far behind were the State Police. Gradually we became aware of a heated discussion, with the voice of Joe Dodge firmly denying that his hutmen would steal signs. Finally the talk ended and up the steps roared Joe Dodge, “ I know you guys did it. Now get those signs back where they belong, get the hell back to your huts, and don’t take days-off together again!”

All of these tales inevitably bring us to Joe Dodge. He was the heart, the brains and a good bit of the muscle of the huts system. And the ‘30’s was the decade when the system emerged as a system. With the construction of Greenleaf in 1929-30, Zealand and Galehead in 1931-32 the huts were linked at a one-day-distance for reasonable hikers.
Joe was at the center of the construction, of the staffing, of the supplies, of all operations. He reported to a committee of the Club, but they gave him a very free rein which he used. Of course there were lots of good people in different spots. But the whistle was blown by Joe. Nothing was better or more gracefully capsuled about him than the Honorary Degree Citation pronounced by President John Sloan Dickey of Dartmouth College in June, 1955.
One time wireless operator at sea, long time mountaineer, student of Mt. Washington’s ways and weather, you have been more than a match for storms, slides, fools, skiers and porcupines.You have rescued so many of us from both the harshness of the mountain and the soft ways leading down to boredom that you, yourself, are now beyond rescue as a legend of all that is unafraid, friendly, rigorously good and ruggedly expressed in the out-of-doors. And with it all you gave this college a great skiing son. As one New Hampshire institution to another, Dartmouth delights to acknowledge you as Master of Art.
For Parker Brownell and me this degree was truly special. Having matured (slightly) since our sign-stealing day, we grew steadily more appreciative of the huts and of Joe’s leadership. In the summer of 1954 the lightbulb went on. “Dartmouth gives one honorary degree each year to a New Hampshire citizen unrelated to academia. Why not Joe?” So we set to, using any and all possible connections. Just before Christmas a strike! In came a call from Dartmouth’s Dean of Faculty Arthur Jensen. “ Your nomination is viewed favorably, but say absolutely nothing to anyone.” We obeyed, to the point where in meeting Joe at the Hanover Inn just before the ceremony, he cried out, “What the hell are you two guys doing here?”