In the past four weeks, several reflective questions have been asked of the seniors, and while I’ve struggled to answer many of them, there’s one that sticks out to me as being the most difficult. It was one of the questions we could choose to answer for “The Story of Us” booklet, but it has also been asked by teachers at family-style meals, by freshmen during tuck-in, and even by other seniors when we’re sitting together on the Front Lawn or in the Dining Hall. Of course, that question is, “What is your favorite SAS memory?” 

I did not choose to do this Chapel Talk to answer that specific question. In fact, when I volunteered to do it, I had no idea what to say.  

I think I did it spontaneously. It just seemed like a, “Well, why not?” kind of thing.

A week ago, I replied to an email from Reverend Becker about this Chapel, saying, “Part of me really wants to give a talk, but I don’t know what to say yet.” To which he responded, “You don’t need to know! You just need to be willing.” Since then, I started thinking, reading back over old Chapel Talks trying to get inspiration. But it wasn’t until I reopened our email chain and reread his response that I thought of something. The idea that willingness overrides any feeling of uncertainty brought me to not only my Chapel Talk idea, but also to where I think my favorite SAS memories are. Don’t get me wrong: I have tons of fond memories here, so my hesitancy to pick a favorite is not due to a lack of options, but rather an abundance. 

Those at the top of my list all share one thing: they were often stupid. I don’t mean stupid in a derogatory way, but instead in the way that there wasn’t much thought put into doing them. These moments were never very serious, but always very fun and always foolish. I had no idea what might come of them in the moment, but I was excited and willing to try. So with the rest of my time up here, I’d like to share three of my experiences of when I was stupid, and encourage everyone to be a little stupid every once in a while.

“St. Andrew’s is a place to take reasonable risks and to learn to be responsible while having a little wiggle room for some fun now and then.” Finn Lorentzen ’25

 

Experience Number One

Ms. McGrath and Mr. Rehrig might want to cover their ears for this one. It’s a quiet Saturday night on Voorhees my sophomore year. I don’t remember there being anything special about the night other than it being a Duffy duty night, one of my favorites. Those of us who remember Duffy remember that he was fascinating. Most nights he was on duty, the sophomores and seniors on Voorhees would gather in the common room asking him unusual questions, trying to get the most outlandish stories out of him. I can’t remember the exact story we heard that night but I do remember that by the time he finished retelling it, it was just about midnight. I also remember Charlie, Veague, and I being rather hungry by then. So we asked yet another unusual question, “Duff, do you think we could get Wawa right now?” It wasn’t exactly a serious inquiry, so you can imagine our surprise when he said, “Sure, why not?”

My memory gets a little hazy here so I don’t remember how he acquired a school van at midnight, but I do remember 15 minutes later, there were nine sophomore boys tiptoeing down the Voorhees stairs, past the library, and into the school van parked outside Moss. We crowded into the van and began our journey over, all while blasting “The Empire Strikes Back” on Grey Durham’s speaker in the first row. I remember scrambling to get the online orders of the other sophomores who didn’t fit in the van, and then loading back into the van theorizing how we could sneak back onto dorm without being caught by a watchful security guard or Nala roaming the halls with Mr. Rehrig. At the end of the night we had a blast, we made it back safely, and our stomachs were full. No harm, no foul. 

 

Experience Number Two

This one I hope you all remember given that it was only two weeks ago. I don’t recall being quite sure what our plan for a prom ask was prior to filming, but in every possible scenario there was a frog involved in some way, shape, or form. I wouldn’t exactly label this stupid; I think the more accurate description is ludicrous. We had frogs jumping everywhere and their subsequent frog juice all over our rooms and couches. At one point there was a frog who jumped into my laundry hamper and another one who got loose from Porter’s grip and ended up hiding behind my dresser for a minute or two. Keep in mind this whole operation was kept a secret so as to not reveal to everyone on dorm what our prom ask was, nor what was hidden in the weird bucket we carried from room to room. We had to huddle around the frogs to block the view anytime we moved them for filming. In 20 years I may not remember how I did on my English exhibition, but I will definitely remember the image of an undoubtedly ridiculous looking group of seniors moving as a pack down Sherwood to hide a few frogs. 

 

Experience Number Three

This is the most recent experience, so recent as this past Monday. For those of you who have tuned into any live sports either this spring or last spring, you’ll have seen an ad for Buffalo Wild Wings’ unlimited wing deal. It’s $20 for all-you-can-eat boneless wings, or $25 for all-you-can-eat bone-in wings for us big spenders. It almost seems too good to be true. This past Monday happened to be our second annual outing. Last year, we convinced Mr. Moffitt to drive us over the night before the math exam during finals week. It was just 10 guys and a dream to eat as many wings as possible. We left school at 6 p.m. and returned at 8:30 p.m. having taken down 227 boneless wings. 

This year, we were back for more and hungrier than ever. Mr. Moffitt was gone but Mr. Jones was willing, like the Saint he is. We got nine guys into the van and were on our way a little after 6 p.m. We learned from our mistakes from last year and changed our strategy, hoping to hit 250 wings, a 23-wing increase from 2024. We started strong, but the first one of us tapped out at a mediocre 22 wings. Before we knew it, it was 8:15 and we had just finished the third round and our next set of wings were ordered. We knew we’d be late for study hall, so we had tried to make sure all of our obligations that night were taken care of so our tardiness wouldn’t be an issue. Unfortunately, despite our advanced age and undeniable wisdom, we forgot one thing, something that Mr. Jones would go on to label a “real bonehead move” ... we didn’t sign out.

Maybe 10 minutes after our order was placed, Mr. Jones received a pointed text from Mrs. McGrath. We were consequently scolded, then told to immediately pay so we could get back to dorm as soon as possible and minimize how late we already were to check-in. I won’t deny this was the first actually stupid or truly thoughtless thing we’ve done in any of these stories, and we all apologized profusely to Mr. Jones for getting him in trouble. As we were walking out the door we saw our wings coming out of the kitchen, but we could not do anything with them. Don’t worry, we donated the order to the other patrons. And yet, somehow the most tragic part of this tale was not missing the last order or forgetting to sign out, but rather that we finished having eaten exactly 249 wings, a single bite away from our goal. Who knows, maybe we can have a reunion attempt a few years down the line, once we don’t have to worry about check-in or marks.

 

You all might be wondering what connects these experiences together, besides the fact they involve me and my time at St. Andrew’s. Well, long story short, it’s about doing the dumb, ludicrous, and absurd things. It’s about taking advantage of the opportunities to be together with friends, to do something new, and to take small risks. St. Andrew’s is a place to take reasonable risks and to learn to be responsible while having a little wiggle room for some fun now and then.  

I’d also like to shout out my past roommate of three years and close friend Will Hagberg as he was a participant in, and in some instances the creator of, each shenanigan I mentioned above. I encourage everyone to find a friend like him to do something dumb with—it clearly makes for great memories. I’m not telling you to go read the handbook, pick your least favorite rule and break it. Just maybe once in a while don’t take everything so seriously and remember no matter how difficult and structured it can be here, it’s still high school and we only get one opportunity at it. Have some fun. 

Thank you.