<b>Chapel Talk by Nick Manny '05</b>
I have lived on this campus as a fac-brat for almost nine years and I have been a student for nearly four. Millbrook has been my home and neighborhood as well as my school for all that time. I was once a child fac-brat known to many as “the little mannimal”. I would rove the campus with a small group of fac-brat ruffians in search of mischief and intent on annoying students. Our primary objective was to degrade the quality of romance on campus. To this end we would seek out couples in their rendezvous points and heckle them from a safe distance in nearby bushes. This fac-brat tradition fell out of practice years ago, but recent efforts have been made by members of the varsity boy’s hockey team to revive it, keeping the customs of past children alive.
It feels as though I have lived here for longer than I actually have. In reality, I’m a newcomer compared to seasoned veterans like Carly and Arthur, both of whom have lived here all their lives. Fac-brat life can often be bizarre due to the kind of neighborhood we live in. We have the unusual experience of having our home constantly being filled and emptied with students who roar on to campus in Rolls Royce’s (I have actually seen this happen), squat with their belongings in the dorms for a few weeks, and then drive off in limousines, hummers, helicopters, zeppelins, hovercrafts etc. On the first day of a vacation, I step outside as the dust of the mass exodus settles around me, and realize that the campus is suddenly my backyard again. It can be pretty spooky at times. The emptied dorms, no longer hives of activity, stand eerily still. The occasional tumbleweed skitters across the quad. Inevitably on vacations there will be a school of fish to be fed in my dining room abandoned by Abbott girls. They have names like Bob if they are unloved, and Swimmybaby Shnookums Cuddlefins if they are. These fish seem to me to be the most miserable fish in the world, sitting inside their little tanks and bowls day in day out, listening to endless teenage gossip and playlists of pop music on repeat. Vacation can get pretty boring after a while with these little wet guys. Towards the end I’m usually looking forward to seeing everyone come back to campus. Of course, not all of you love to come back here all the time. Your situations are different from mine because you have to leave the comfort of your homes. Although many may not be happy to return to the dorms, I’ve always enjoyed being able to go hang around in them. Some think I am a little crazy to spend so much time there when I have my house nearby. However, they fail to understand that in the dorms there are lots of things to do for a fac-brat who is bored by sitting around the house. When I was in Prum freshman year I could always go to Hayden Bird’s room and watch him play baseball on his computer while sitting on a gigantic festering pile of dirty laundry. There was also the option of banding together with a group of other Prummies to cruise over to Guest House and wow the ladies with our charm and masculinity (varying degrees of success with this). Sometimes I would spend the night in Ezra and Andrew Williamson’s room, which was a little foolish because there was really nothing to do past 10:30 but sleep on a therma-rest on the floor. I once tried sleeping in the room’s circular chair, but every time I moved an inch it would creak and Ezra would moan on his bed like a dying cow. Other things I remember from Prum are Brian Pecchia chugging a bottle of ketchup for a bet, hanging a noose outside of Owen Murphy’s window to freak him out when he was afraid of ghosts, and of course, the great pornography bust of ’02. We were definitely a seedy, bizarre little group of early pubescents. Since that year I have been put in all three of the upper class dorms. I was in Harris my sophomore year, where a good time was had by all. In Harris we would play video games religiously from 10 to 11 at night. If someone were talented at playing Halo, his social standing would go up. This is a strange phenomenon of male dorms, which I have never seen in female dorms. Boys actually gossip about the gaming skills of their friends and, in extreme circumstances, they judge their worth as human beings depending on how good they are. It may sound a little twisted, but the competitive energy has to express itself somehow.
My junior year I was in Case Hall, the Brick Palace of Millbrook, a place shrouded in the legend and mystery of generations of illustrious monkeys, home to a brotherhood of primates who forge the unbreakable bonds of their camaraderie in the hallowed crypts of their shower room. I always felt just a little bit detached from everyone in Case because I never went through the rite of passage of the showers. Nevertheless, I had an excellent time there. I remember standing outside Crawford Hamilton’s room watching as Mark Broadhead and Anton Knapp assaulted him in broad daylight while he lay on his bed. In a clean jerk Crawford’s top mattress was swept from beneath him and repositioned on top of him. Broadhead proceeded to sit on the mattresses with his yowling victim sandwiched between. Anton, with a look of fiendish delight, exclaimed, “Look at these Christmas hams!” and latched onto Crawford’s thighs, disregarding his pleas for mercy. This blitzkrieg operation took about thirty seconds and the assailants were gone as quickly as they had come. In the aftermath of the attack, Crawford emerged whimpering and traumatized from between his mattresses like a badger whose den has just collapsed. Case had a lot of warring factions such as these whose battles had to be fought with guerrilla tactics to avoid the all-seeing eye of Brian “The White Eel” Mitchell, a law enforcement officer feared for silence of movement and speed akin to that of his slippery namesake.
I didn’t partake in most of the monkeyshines and tomfoolery of the primate house my junior year because I was sidelined with a broken leg. One of things I remember the best from that year is lying on the asphalt next to the Fullers with my left leg looking very unwell and Paolo Menuez leaning against a tree nearby saying “Well Manny, just another one of life’s little curveballs.” That was a bit of an understatement. There was plenty of surgery and nuts and bolts, which I could describe to you, but suffice it to say, I broke my leg very, very well. In appreciations, people often say, “I never expected everyone to be so helpful” when they probably did expect it. However, I can honestly say that I had no idea how supportive people would be of me during my recovery. I got a huge get-well card the first day I got home and people stopped by all the time to see how I was doing, which was very nice even though most of the time my mind was floating on a fluffy pink cloud of painkillers. People I had never talked to before offered to help me get food in the dining hall when I was hungry and Derek Kruger in particular loved to push me in my wheelchair at high speeds from class to class, fishtailing at every turn. I seem to remember squealing with childish glee during these joyful outings and waving my crutches in the air like a person possessed, pointing in the direction I wanted to go. Needless to say, life became much less glamorous after I was weaned off the painkillers and the wheelchair. I am very thankful that I was living at Millbrook when it all happened. My junior year could have been an absolute disaster if I weren’t in this community.
By now I am almost completely healed up and it’s my class’s senior year. I was assigned to live in Siberia this year, which at first I thought would be horrible. However the winters are not as cold as they say and the locals are welcoming. Entertainment can be hard to come by in that god-forsaken land. Pinsky often tries to liven things up by donning a wetsuit and visiting every room in the building. And of course, there is Adam Zippin. It’s been a good time.
There are only six weeks or so until graduation, which isn’t much time. Even though I won’t really be leaving Millbrook as completely as most of you will (again, I live here), every one of us will be leaving each other and this stage in our lives. I am ready to leave having been a student here for so long and I know my classmates are eager to get out and do other things. With that said, I am also sad to be going. I have had some great times here and I will have lots of good memories. Along with that I’ve had some pretty gloomy times, which everyone has had. This separation that my class is about to experience should be celebrated to some degree. We will be moving on and we will have more freedom to travel or party or study or do whatever. But we should not be tempted to completely discredit the time we’ve spent here. I’m sure we’ve all met good people and had fun times at Millbrook….. So my advice, which I’m sure has been said many times before to many other senior classes, is to enjoy these last few weeks. Reminisce about good things and bad things that have happened during your time here and prepare yourselves for a change that will be equally thrilling and sad. To the rest of you, don’t ever forget to see the simple amusements of daily life at Millbrook, even if you think you hate it. If you like it anyway, then there’s no problem at all. Life will never be completely perfect just like Millbrook will never be completely perfect and it helps keep things realistic if you can laugh at the imperfections.
