A C H A P E L TA L K
by Nicholas Burgin ’92, P’21, Trustee November 10, 2017
Crowd. Ever.
D
espite possible photographic evidence to the contrary, I’m going to be insisting repeatedly going forward that this is the largest crowd ever to witness a chapel talk. Gail 1, if you’re here, be sure to publish that in the next Quarterly as though it were a fact. I used to have to do the occasional speech to a group of finance folks, but they were always all just staring down at their Blackberries. Students probably don’t even know what those are anymore, or maybe are wondering why finance types like to look at small pieces of fruit during a speech, and I’m sorry for the dated reference (the first of many today, you’ll be forewarned). Anyway, I could say whatever I wanted during those speeches, and no one knew the difference because no one was paying attention. Looking around here, though, people are actually sitting up and listening—or, at least, doing one or the other, and maybe even a few people, both. This is a refreshing change, but it does have me a little nervous. One thing I do know right now is that I’m glad I scrapped my initial plan to continue Steve Hill’s recently established tradition of trustees freestyle-rapping their chapel talks. My son Tate can attest to my love for nineties rap, but he’s heard me rhyming along in the car with Tupac, Biggie, and Dre, and it’s not a pleasant listening experience—we can leave it at that. On the subject of past trustee chapel talks, I was talking to Bill Vrattos [’87, P’18, ’19] after his fantastic talk last year, and he mentioned that giving the talk was a great way to address one’s kid (or kids) without giving them the ability to pop in earbuds, or just get up and leave mid-lecture, as my kids do. That seemed like reason enough to do this, so here I am. And thank you, Temba, for delaying me from talking last spring and putting me in this time slot instead,
since it would have been a tactical blunder on my part to use the talk to get my son’s undivided attention, but to accidentally do so five months before he even attended Groton. He’s here now (I think?), so my plan is coming off without a hitch thus far. Unfortunately, my life has been boring enough and conventional enough that it’s not easily mineable for chapel talk material. Or, maybe that’s actually fortunate, since a lot of what makes for a good story or a good lesson after the fact is pretty tough while you’re going through it. Bear with me for a minute while I try to figure out whether the fact that I don’t have much to talk about up here is a good thing or a bad thing. I realize that by talking about how I don’t have a lot to talk about, I’m entering meta territory more suited to a Charlie Kaufman screenplay than an actual chapel talk. I grew up in a privileged environment, following in family footsteps when I came to Groton—my mom is a Bundy, so we’re talking about a lot of footsteps, whole WASPish armies of loafer-wearing feet (boat shoes on weekends)—and I did well enough here at Groton because that was what was expected of me. I spent a lot of time down at the boathouse even though I didn’t always love rowing because I knew rowing could help me get into college. Sure enough, it did, and I ended up at an Ivy League school (now there’s a better plug for you, Andy 2 ). I rowed there for long enough not to disappoint parents and coaches but, in truth, I wasn’t totally committed to it— rowing had already served its primary purpose of helping me get into college. 1
Gail Friedman, director of communications and Quarterly editor Andy Anderson, assistant head of school and crew coach
2
www.groton.org
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Biggest Chapel Talk