Exeter Screens Fun at Wheelwright

Spring is rearing her beautifully tempting head on campus, and most of us are leaving our books behind to bask in her glory. However, those of us in Wheelwright Hall have not been so fortunate. In fact, tragedy has struck. Many of you may remember feeling suffocated and grinding awkwardly with someone at the first dance of spring term, Wheelwright Whiteout. We had gotten screens put in place after one too many forgotten keycards and window jumpings by StuCo VP Emily Lemmerman. During her time as an unknowing prep, VP Lemmerman had gotten many a 7’s for hurling herself through the windows of the common room. Faculty, tired of punishing the then-prep rep (and of getting mosquito bites), had big, ugly screens put on the windows. Fast forward to Whiteout two years later, and thanks to strength of a thousand hormonal teenagers, two of the screens were torn off of the windows. For weeks after, the sun shone brightly, the wind blew freely and Wheelwright girls jumped in and out of the common room windows. “I felt hella free,” senior Madeleine Brand-LaBarge gushes to the humor page. The “hella freedom,” however, was short lived when campus safety showed up to the common room with two brand new, even grayer screens. Some members of the dorm were in the common room at the time of the crime. I am glad to report that I was there, and I survived. Wails of despair escaped from the throats of oppressed teenagers as the facilities men hammered out hearts along with the window screens. The men with hammers threatened metal bars the next time the screens disappeared, and lowers Lily Sexton and Ashley Baxter could only stand outside of the dorm, mortified, as barrier was put up to isolate them from the rest of the quad. How else were they supposed to lean in? How could the school expect them to be happy, productive spring termers with the sun being stolen from their common room? A photo of the girls is available below, and the members of Wheelwright still mourn our previously unscreened windows. As an homage to the freer times, we asked the patron ghost of Wheelwright, Georgia O’Plath to write us a poem: Oh screensI am in a dark, endless cavewherein my flowers cannotbloombecause deep within thecommon roomthe music of the sunrings no bellwithin anyonethere is a smellit is oppressionas the screens leavesgrid impression onour once cherubic faceswe mourn the lossof the opportunityfor the fertilityof ourfreedom flowers