OCMC (Pronounced: Ock-Muk)

This weekend was our first Mock Trial tournament of the season. With the exception of two of us, it's a team of rookies; so this tournament couldn't really be seen as anything more than a learning experience. There were some great moments this weekend. Such as the time when a judge, during comments, said that the attorneys should get up to examine a witness with a pen in their hands to play with (which prompted me to threaten to stab my fellow attorneys if they ever did that). Or the time a team from the University of Cincinnati called a witness who supposedly graduated from Duke University, was in his fifties, and had a wife and children, but acted so retarded that I found it hard to believe he was older than twelve or that anyone would procreate with him. Seriously now, who sits on the witness stand and looks at his hands as though seeing them for the first time? (No, he wasn't high.) And there will always be the worst defendant of all time, who prompted the question on cross examination, "It was dark. And so you took the long way? Does your car have headlights or not, Mr. Perry?"

Anyway, the real reason I write this morning is that my team has given me a new nickname. Last season I was just "Alamaroo." (It went with everyone else. On the trips, there were four of us who generally roomed together: Kevbo, Beffernoo, J-Coo, and myself, Alamaroo.) This year I've been dubbed, "Oh Captain My Captain." And "Beffernoo" has been changed to "Co-Captain My Captain." Then somehow the names got shortened to "OCMC" (Ock-Muk) and "COCMC" (Cock-Muk). I thought it was all funny. I knew the name only from The Dead Poets' Society (excellent Robin Williams film; if you haven't seen it, do so quickly). Then COCMC decided to read me the Walt Whitman poem, the original, the story about death.

O Captain! My Captain!
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.


O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.


My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Think they're trying to tell me something? If we make it to the National Championships again this year and I end up dead or missing, you know who to go after.