“Hearing reveals new details in Grace Mann murder case,” Keith Epps, Free Lance Star, 6/16/15.
This article describes the crime scene in detail, as well as allegations about the events leading up to the homicide. Please note that the story is disturbing before reading it.
A 20-year-old female student was the victim of a homicide yesterday at an off campus residence; a male student has been charged with abduction and first degree murder:
Well … maybe not, as I am not even certain he’d been born yet when I was in college. But I did a fine job of channeling Christopher Plummer. I was into Sherlock Holmes about 20 years before it was cool.
I believe all that coolness rubbed off from a double-dose of Nate. Pictured here are Nate “The Amazing Nate” Leslie and Nate “The Great Nate” Wade. Nate L. is now a critically acclaimed author and a professor at Northern Virginia Community College. Nate W. is now a public defender in Pima County, Arizona.
In place of hair, I wore a Tribble from the original “Star Trek” series, as was popular at the time.
No one can forget the time when Carroll O’Connor (aka Archie Bunker) stopped by to prepare barbecue for us …
Finally, no Mary Washington College post would be complete without a shot of the legendary Len Ornstein (far left).
Or the mythic James A. Cordone.
The above is excerpted from an engaging article in the Summer 2014 University of Mary Washington Magazine about the planned restoration of the fabled amphitheater — with which I am just thrilled, as it holds some of my favorite college memories.
And the article even quoted me, which I thought was quite flattering — I played Fletcher McGee in a 1990 Theater Workshop production of Edgar Lee Masters’ “Spoon River Anthology.” I still remember running around that stage after class, trying desperately (and often in vain) to remember my lines, and snacking on chicken sandwiches and fishburgers form Seacobeck Dining Hall.
Check out page 24 of the magazine, linked below, for details about the project, which has been spurred on by a $1 million gift from Robert S. and Alice Andrews Jepson. The project sounds like it will create a great space — a modernized amphitheater that will seat 600, but with all of the classical architectural features with which it was originally built in the early 1950’s. I can’t wait to see it when it is finished, and it would be great fun to round up a few alumni to attend a student production there.
Celebrate National Poetry Month — here is “Fletcher McGee,” from Edgar Lee Masters’ “Spoon River Anthology.”
Below it are two photos of Mary Washington College’s outdoor amphitheater. (Alum Janet Walbroehl Winston took the photos; Russell Morgan is pictured.) Many, many moons ago, I was cast in an outdoor production of “Spoon River” as a Freshman. “Fletcher McGee” was one of the roles I portrayed. I was not Laurence Olivier. After our first performance, one classmate advised me, “Stop overacting.” You kinda don’t get much more candid than that, or concise.
Oh, well. I still had fun. I have wonderful memories of early Autumn evenings, eating cafeteria cheeseburgers and fish sandwiches, wearing vintage costumes and rehearsing lines with the other 19-year-old kids. And that amphitheater was a beautiful place among those tall, overarching Fall trees, even if it was in a state of disrepair even then.
After I die, if I wind up speaking like the ghosts in Masters’ “Spoon River,” maybe that’ll be the place I will choose to haunt.
“Fletcher McGee”
She took my strength by minutes, She took my life by hours, She drained me like a fevered moon That saps the spinning world. The days went by like shadows, The minutes wheeled like stars. She took the pity from my heart, And made it into smiles. She was a hunk of sculptor's clay, My secret thoughts were fingers: They flew behind her pensive brow And lined it deep with pain. They set the lips, and sagged the cheeks, And drooped the eye with sorrow. My soul had entered in the clay, Fighting like seven devils. It was not mine, it was not hers; She held it, but its struggles Modeled a face she hated, And a face I feared to see. I beat the windows, shook the bolts. I hid me in a corner And then she died and haunted me, And hunted me for life.
My big brother and Mary Washington College Alum, Russel Morgan, visited campus recently and took some terrific photos — MWC has changed a LOT since 1994, but there are still many places I recognize.
The first picture is of the dining hall where I worked as a student employee — horsing around with the other kids, constantly drinking coffee and that sweet red “bug juice” punch, and adopting cookies, cheeseburgers and tater tots as staple foods. It is also where I worked countless hours on “Dishline,” the assembly-line-like workspace where I and the other kids cleaned all the dishes that were returned. Wow. That was a lot of wet work. I believe that I still smell of ketchup to this day. I indeed capitalize “Dishline,” as it is both famous and infamous, and figured largely in the formative years of many past students. If you attended Mary Wash and you know what being “on carts” was, then you are a “Seacobeck Alum.”
Also pictured, in the second photo, are New Hall and Alvey Hall. (I’m certain new Hall must have been dubbed with a donor’s name in the intervening years since I graduated.) The men and women I lived among here are among the finest I’ve ever met. To quote the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, “I Accuse My Parents,” “I threw some kickass parties here.”
In the third photo are Mason and Randolph Halls. My college girlfriend (and possibly the sweetest person I’ve ever met), Kim Haun, lived in Mason. That low-lying structure linking the two was a literal tunnel, where dorm rooms existed at the time. (We quite creatively nicknamed it “The Tunnel.”) Here is where I partied as a Freshman with Steve Miller. (No, not the musician, Steve Miller — but the irony here is that my pal Steve was a huge fan of the eponymous star and played all of his albums while we sipped rum and cokes on the weekends.) My college experience would never have been the same if Steve and his upperclassmen friends hadn’t taken me under their wing.
[EDIT — It was actually MWC Janet Walbroehl Winston who took these photos!! Russ, you scene-stealer!!!]
Seacobeck Dining Hall.
New Hall and Alvey Hall.
Mason and Randolph Halls, with”The Tunnel” in the middle.
Ball Hall.
Thanks to Dagda Publishing for another kind mention in its weekly newsletter today; the cover artwork for my upcoming novel, “The Dogs Don’t Bark In Brooklyn Any More,” should be revealed next week.
🙂
I received a very gracious note today from the good folks over at Dead Beats Literary Blog. They informed me that my poem, “Confession,” which was published there yesterday, received more than 70 “notes” — “likes,” “reblogs” and positive comments. This is an unusual amount for a single piece, they explained.
I am very grateful — both to Dead Beats and to their readers who reacted so kindly to my work. 🙂
“Confession” can be viewed here:
http://www.deadbeats.eu/post/63481494199/confession-by-eric-robert-nolan#notes
PUBLICATION NOTICE.
I am honored to be able to share that Dead Beats Literary Bog today kindly published my poem, “Confession.”
This is a poem that is not for everybody, due to its darker themes and sexual imagery, as well as its criticism of organized religion. It definitely drew mixed reactions from people to whom I had shown it before submission.
I still stand by the piece, however, and I am quite grateful for Dead Beats for allowing me a forum for a poem like this.
THANK YOU, DEAD BEATS!
http://www.deadbeats.eu/post/63481494199/confession-by-eric-robert-nolan
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 