Gasson tower, May 15, 2007. Photograph: Gary Wayne Gilbert

More than half of the entries in the tales out of school contest announced by Boston College Magazine last winter came from two groups—recent, 21st-century graduates or their grandparents’ generation, graduates of the 1950s. The younger alumni were more inclined to recount an event, the older ones to describe a professor. Mostly, faculty were cited for their humor, mercy, or salutatory sternness, but once—at the funeral of an underclassman’s father—it was for just being there. Among them were some whose teaching days are past (Mahoney, Duhamel, Hirsh, Zamkochian, Dalcimer, McNally, McHugh, Drinan, Crowley, Rooney, Flaherty, Harney, Leonard, Hillgarth, Folkard) and some who still practice the craft: Matson, Ver Eecke, Howard, Paris. Aquinas earned several mentions, as did Socrates (for his influence on teaching style); nods also went to Yeats, Samuel Johnson, and Count Dracula. Events so dramatic as to put class schedules on hold were noted: On April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., an announcement came down “that the entire college would stand in silent prayer in his honor,” recalled Beverly Nichols MSW ’66. In February 1978, after a 27-inch snowfall, “the Red Cross put out a request for volunteers to help at the shelters downtown,” wrote Lynn Donahue Pray ’81, who remembers students riding in snowplows to Boston. No event prompted more entries than the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a day when, in fact, classes continued. “Should we hold class?” Adam Hadhazy ’03 recalled his Russian literature professor asking. “A few tacit moments elapsed, each of us churning. . . . The room nodded and murmured assent. . . . We opened our books to the scheduled chapter and proceeded.” Liza Hammond ’04 recalled the “unity across campus” that day as “palpable . . . culminating when thousands of us gathered on O’Neill Plaza, where Fr. Leahy held prayer.” And Kerry McManama ’02 wrote, “When my children ask me where I was on September 11, I will tell them . . . among the frightened and hopeful, on the grounds of Boston College.”

First prize

The spiral staircase

by Kevin F. Dwyer ’88

And then we spotted Fr. Fitz—angry, bolting up the hill toward the tower; he had indeed heard. So said my grandfather, J. Francis Martin ’28. I laughed as he told of the time he and his cheeky BC chums sneaked into Gasson Tower and rang the bells off-sync as Jesuits plied students with Latin and Greek in classrooms beneath. “Did you get caught?” No. Quickly descending, they’d ducked into the back of a lecture.

The story planted a seed: 1988—graduation looms. In four years I’d rattled every doorknob on Gasson third. A grandfatherly hint: You didn’t hear it from me, but you might try the second floor.

Gothic wooden door, accidentally ajar. Cast-iron spiral stair. Swirling up, past decades of graffiti on vintage brick; names, jokes, cartoonish sketching. Further ascent finds four esteemed bells hung on a cubed timber frame. And more antiquated prose, inscriptions from the Roaring Twenties, Depression, war. Kilroy-esque drawings during Ike’s reign. In 1966, a poet writes of a rainy day and a girl. Astonishing view: city skyline to the east. Serenity and near silence until bells peal, taking years off my hearing. Joining legions before, I chalk (KD’88) and descend.

Below, I am met, not by a cassocked Jesuit, but by two frowning Boston College cops, having tripped modern lasers on the spiral ascent. Threatened with expulsion, but absolved by gaping portal.

Kevin F. Dwyer investigates medical malpractice for an insurance company. He resides in Oakland, California.

Runner-up

Fighting French words

by Gérard LaRoche ’42, MA’43

Summer school for me, in 1942, was welcome. It would help me get the few remaining credits needed for my BA degree out of the way before graduation, which, during the war, when there were no formal graduation exercises, could be as late as July. I took a course in religion and also a literature class that traced French theater from the mystery plays of the Middle Ages to La Dame Aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils.

And because it was designed to fill a wartime need, I took “Military French.” The instructor, Monsieur De Beauvivier, was one of the more colorful members of the language faculty. He had served as an artillery officer in the French Army during the First World War, and he sported a walrus mustache that would have made Marshall Joffre’s look juvenile by comparison.

Sometimes, in order to illustrate a point of military tactics or terminology, Monsieur De Beauvivier would bring to class pieces from his private collection, which was a veritable arsenal—a 75-millimeter shell, for instance (minus the powder charge, of course), assorted bayonets, hand grenades, various small-arms ammunition. On one occasion he rolled up his pant leg to show an ugly shrapnel wound received on the battlefield.

The course was to be of inestimable assistance in my future army assignment, as a combat interpreter with the Second Armored Division from Normandy to the Ardennes.

Gérard LaRoche retired from the National Security Agency in 1979. He lives in Cheverly, Maryland.

Runner-up

This must be the place

by Caroline Kita ’04

I open the heavy wooden door of Lyons Hall, palms sweaty, test anxiety setting in. I’ve spent the last hour listening on my headphones to Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, with Professor Jeremiah McGrann’s soothing voice-over calmly pointing out the exposition, development, and recapitulation sections, as though announcing a blue-light special in aisle three. It’s test day in “Music of the Romantic Era” and I’m convinced that no matter how hard I studied, as a lowly freshman in a class of music majors, I’m sure to fail.

As I bound up the stairs to the fourth floor (waiting for the old freight elevator would have wasted precious study minutes), questions flood my mind. Will I remember the characteristics of French Grand Opera? How does one draw a diagram of sonata form? I take a deep breath and open the door to room 423.

To my surprise, the stereo is blasting the rock tunes of the Talking Heads. Professor McGrann, bow tie slightly crooked, sits with his legs crossed in the front of the room, his raised pant leg revealing a sock with Beethoven’s faced embroidered on it.

“Brownie?” he offers, “McGrann family recipe.” He cuts me a piece and places it on a napkin, and despite my test worries, I can’t help but return a smile. When the seats are sufficiently full, he turns down the music. “Are we all relaxed?” he says. “Let’s get started.”

Caroline Kita is a graduate student at Duke University, working on her Ph.D. in German studies.