"It's kind of foreboding looking," said a 48-year-old Toronto writer
who sneaked into the Tomb with her boyfriend during spring break
1975. "They made it into this big mystery thing. But it wasn't. It's
just like a big clubhouse, but it's not in a tree." There was a
large dining room with a long table, and she recalled a room full of
license plates. "They were always ripping things off with '322' on
them."
The number 322 is a variation on the year (1832) that the club was
founded by William H. Russell, a Yale student who modeled it after
one he'd encountered in Germany. At its inception, said Dr. Alan
Cross, one of Kerry's classmates and a third-generation Bonesman,
the club was "basically a debating society, where members of the
senior class would get together and discuss important topics of the
day." (Bonesmen have a special regard for Demosthenes, the famed
Greek orator who died in 322 BC.)