If Duke could deal with my ever-growing piles of laundry lying about the room, I figured I could deal with a little snoring.

Mike, who shared a bunk-bed with Glenn, may or may not have snored--no one knew, since he was never around the first few weeks. Glenn dubbed him "The Phantom," in part because Mike would not appear in the room until after 2 a.m., in part because Mike could do things like exit through the front door and re-emerge seconds later from his room.

What made Mike's disappearing and reappearing acts so dramatic was the fact that for a while he had to do them on crutches. A top-notch wrestler and pole vaulter, Mike recently had blown out one of his knees on a bad vault and had stitches in his knee from the surgery. It was easy to tell that Mike, the quintessential athlete, was getting impatient with the healing process, because whenever he had a few drinks, he went jogging, crutches and all.

Suddenly the word "phantom" became a verb. As the year went on and the academic load grew, Mike phantomed more and more frequently. After the night Mike and Ben, the nut from Santa Monica across the hall, decided they were going to run around the Yard dressed only in shaving cream and shorts, we initiated a Phantom Watch. People would call on Friday nights: "Is he doing it? Can we come over?"

The funny thing about Mike was that he gave everything he was doing his full concentration--whether scaling the Widener Library walls or reading Samuel Johnson. One night, he and Glennwoke me up at 4:30 a.m. with their discussion inthe common room on Eliot's "The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock."

That's Harvard, I guess, but the Phantom wasdefinitely not the most normal Harvard type. Buthe was fun to be around, and he didn't break toomany things.

Glenn sometimes got a little out of controlwhen he drank, too. At some parties, he wouldquote Beowulf and demand that everyone callhim Grendel. Then he would get sick on the carpet.

Still, we encouraged Glenn to drink becausewhen he was drunk he became hystericallyobnoxious. He'd make rude comments about everyone,and crack some of the funniest non-sequitorsyou'll ever hear. And if he got drunk enough,Glenn would start to dance, which was far funnierthan any of his jokes.

Glenn was, and is, a very neat person, so Idon't know how he dealt with living in our room.Holworthy 9 is on the first floor, which meantthat everyone in the entryway would stop by for awhile on their way upstairs. Many would bringfood, some of which inevitably ended up on ourrug. The food that didn't hit the rug insteadwould hit the piles of pizza boxes and newspapersthat lasted for weeks on our floor.

It was squalor, pure and simple, and Glennhated it. You could tell that by the way herefused to walk on the carpet in his bare feetbecause he was afraid of catching a disease. ButGlenn never let his revulsion of the way we livedaffect the way he dealt with those of us whocaused the mess. Instead, he just got even byplaying his Broadway show tapes after we had allgone to sleep.

I have some great memories of my first year:our wine cooler' and cheez whiz party whichevolved into a pineapple fight that nearlydestroyed our room; Duke singing "Hey Jude" infalsetto in time with his walkman, unaware thatothers could hear him; the Mets winning the WorldSeries over the Red Sox; Ben participating in hisfirst-ever snowball fight.

I also have some less-than-pleasant ones:sobering up much too late one night at LesleyCollege; sleepwalking and sleeptalking withincreasing frequency; watching people throw dartsat the Gary Carter poster over my desk; winningthe Great Chickwich Eat-Off against Duke (eight in32 minutes). But the year was easily the best oneI have ever had.

They say that you learn more from the studentshere than from the professors. That's trueespecially if you luck out like me and get greatroommates. It helps, of course, if you're laidback and tolerant of the people with whom youlive. After all, it takes some people a whilelonger than others to get used to marriage.