Dennis Rivelli '70: My Senior year
>> Monday, October 18, 2010 –
History
My father didn’t get up to visit me from Chicago very often while I attended St. Mary’s 67-70, but the first thing out of his mouth when I proudly gave him a tour of the Barracks at graduation was, “You mean I paid all that money for room and board for this”?
OK, so towards the end of its existence the Barracks was no picture of beauty but, for those fortunate enough to have called themselves “Barrack’s Bears” (I still have the T-Shirt but it has long since ceased to fit) and live in the exclusive “Seniors Only” Barracks, it was the continuation of a great St. Mary’s tradition.
Although I only know the story from what I was told back then, I believe the two buildings, located next to Skemp and Heffron Hall, were constructed as part of an officers training program back either before or during World War II and named for two St. May’s graduates Rooney and Ditter who died in that war.
It is true the years and abuse by many had not treated the two buildings well. With no air conditioning and only a wall heater in the outer room that adjoined the two small bedrooms in each unit. At night, if you didn’t keep the bedroom door partially open you died of the heat at the beginning of the fall semester and froze to death in the winter. In the spring, when it rained, the common area between the two buildings would flood and we’d have to sand bag each entry door to try and keep the water out of our living space. There was only one phone located in a pay phone booth between the buildings and there was a constant battle for access and use 24/7.
One of the grandest traditions, on going from long before I attended, was the annual freshman attempt to take over the Barracks from the seniors that would occur on the season’s first snow fall. To my knowledge at the time, and until its final demise, no freshman class was ever able to overpower and capture the Barracks from the senior residents.
Immediately adjacent to the Barracks and separating the Barracks visually from the central campus area were a row of pine trees towering 40 or 50 feet high. With temperatures dropping and snow predicted, the Barrack’s residents, often with assistance from other campus seniors, would maintain a diligent readiness anticipating attack at any time: water hoses hoisted up to the roofs of both building, sling shots at the ready to launch projectiles into the pines to drop piles of snow laden branches down on unsuspecting charging freshmen, the ever ready piles of snow balls and the showers at the ready for captured freshmen to cool them down before launching them back into the winter storm.
I remember that night like it was yesterday. There was always something “eerie” about the darkness, wind and falling snow on St. Mary’s campus. Maybe because of the bowl created by the bluffs that surrounded us, but I recall you could actually hear the snow falling and the wind blowing. Add to that the sound of a hundred or so freshman from Benilde, Ed’s and Heffron screaming as they charged from beyond the trees in the dark of night towards us. You’d swear it was a band of wild Indians attacking the pioneer settlement.
As seniors had done for decades before us, we defended the Barracks tradition well with hand to hand confrontation soaking many a freshman and successfully fighting off every charge all night long.
To anyone else, the Barracks were just two broken down old buildings that outlived their usefulness long ago. To generations at St. Mary’s College, they were hollowed ground and home of the “privileged” who were fortunate enough to have lived there their senior year.
Long Live the Tradition of the Barracks Bears!!
OK, so towards the end of its existence the Barracks was no picture of beauty but, for those fortunate enough to have called themselves “Barrack’s Bears” (I still have the T-Shirt but it has long since ceased to fit) and live in the exclusive “Seniors Only” Barracks, it was the continuation of a great St. Mary’s tradition.
Although I only know the story from what I was told back then, I believe the two buildings, located next to Skemp and Heffron Hall, were constructed as part of an officers training program back either before or during World War II and named for two St. May’s graduates Rooney and Ditter who died in that war.
It is true the years and abuse by many had not treated the two buildings well. With no air conditioning and only a wall heater in the outer room that adjoined the two small bedrooms in each unit. At night, if you didn’t keep the bedroom door partially open you died of the heat at the beginning of the fall semester and froze to death in the winter. In the spring, when it rained, the common area between the two buildings would flood and we’d have to sand bag each entry door to try and keep the water out of our living space. There was only one phone located in a pay phone booth between the buildings and there was a constant battle for access and use 24/7.
One of the grandest traditions, on going from long before I attended, was the annual freshman attempt to take over the Barracks from the seniors that would occur on the season’s first snow fall. To my knowledge at the time, and until its final demise, no freshman class was ever able to overpower and capture the Barracks from the senior residents.
Immediately adjacent to the Barracks and separating the Barracks visually from the central campus area were a row of pine trees towering 40 or 50 feet high. With temperatures dropping and snow predicted, the Barrack’s residents, often with assistance from other campus seniors, would maintain a diligent readiness anticipating attack at any time: water hoses hoisted up to the roofs of both building, sling shots at the ready to launch projectiles into the pines to drop piles of snow laden branches down on unsuspecting charging freshmen, the ever ready piles of snow balls and the showers at the ready for captured freshmen to cool them down before launching them back into the winter storm.
I remember that night like it was yesterday. There was always something “eerie” about the darkness, wind and falling snow on St. Mary’s campus. Maybe because of the bowl created by the bluffs that surrounded us, but I recall you could actually hear the snow falling and the wind blowing. Add to that the sound of a hundred or so freshman from Benilde, Ed’s and Heffron screaming as they charged from beyond the trees in the dark of night towards us. You’d swear it was a band of wild Indians attacking the pioneer settlement.
As seniors had done for decades before us, we defended the Barracks tradition well with hand to hand confrontation soaking many a freshman and successfully fighting off every charge all night long.
To anyone else, the Barracks were just two broken down old buildings that outlived their usefulness long ago. To generations at St. Mary’s College, they were hollowed ground and home of the “privileged” who were fortunate enough to have lived there their senior year.
Long Live the Tradition of the Barracks Bears!!
