From June of 2000 to June of 2003, I lived in a Duplex with a total of 23 college men. Here I witnessed and was a part of some of the most selfish and childish acts, and some of the most unselfish and compassionate acts I have ever seen. It was there that I can truly pinpoint the growth and maturity of the person I now am, and through a driven and passionate community, we helped others to develop into wonderful, loving, strong men as well. But like humans, we often fell short.

The story actually begins two years before the beginning of my stay at the Duplex. During my freshman year of college, I met several men who had a profound impact on me. Seeing as they lived on the same floor as me, it was not too difficult to meet them. However, none of us were content with just being casual acquaintances, and pursued a community where we helped each other through our struggles, lifted each other up with practical needs, while having a lot of fun, as college guys are prone to do. Never before in my life had I been in a group of friends that fun and compassionate. Of the several from that group, nicknamed the “Brotherhood,” ten of us moved into two sides of a duplex two years later, my junior year, and that is where The Duplex Chronicles of course began.

My documentation of my experiences there is in no way meant to harm or shame those involved, prove the betterment of some whilst pointing out the faults in others, nor claim to capture the totality of the story. I only wish to tell the story of the things I learned, discovered, and witnessed. And in that vain, I want to try to remain as truthful to the events as I can. But I would also like to protect the identity of those involved, so I have changed the names of those involved to Lord of the Rings characters, decisively cast by myself and others. I will be telling the story through the eyes of Sam Gamgee, naturally. Here are the rest of the characters that will be involved:

Frodo
Gimli
Elrond
Legolas
Faramir
Boromir
Smeagol
Wormtongue
Beorn
Gandolf
Aragorn
Treebeard
Bilbo
Merry
Pippin
Eomer
Theodon
Denethor
Misc. Rider of Rohan
Radagast the Brown
Tom Bombadil

Those of you who were involved and know these stories, good luck figuring out which one is you. I will never reveal (at least via this website) who is who, although as the stories go on, those involved will probably figure it out. Once again, I want to make the disclaimer that any brutal honesty in the storytelling is not meant to degrade those involved nor myself, but simply to tell the stories of those eventful and entertaining few years.

I was thinking for a while to just do this as a series of essays or a book or something, but since the stories only come to me randomly, and I couldn’t figure out a good enough way to do it the other methods, I’ve decided to tell the stories blog-style (and that’s the new way to tell stories anyway isn’t it?). Hopefully you will be able to relate, laugh, learn, and comment. Enjoy!

– Samwise