Bob Arellano graduated class of 1991. He returned and got an MFA in 1994. He shared the following Rock memory:
A lot of spots are dear to me “in” the Rockefeller Library, but none so much as a place that’s out: the Zechariah Chafee Garden, hidden away downhill behind the Rock. There’s a high wall all around, and the B-level doors from inside the library as well as the outside gate onto Lot 52 are always locked. You know what we’d do? After closing, we’d climb onto the A-level deck at College Street and scale the side of the building around back. It involved using your arms and legs to sandwich the vertical supports, those cement gills that, along with the narrow tinted windows, give the Rock its retro-futurist, “Empire Strikes Back” charm. Suspended 20 feet above the garden bricks, we’d take our lives (or at least our fibulas) into our hands for a chance to dance with Zechariah’s ghost in his secret garden. When I think of the Rock, I’ll always remember the place where they keep my graduate thesis (Brown’s first electronic MFA!), the stacks in Western Language and Literature where I first picked out “On Being Blue” by William Gass, and the little desk in circulation where I brought flowers to that sweet Norwegian staffer who stole my heart (oh, Katrine, why can’t I find you on Facebook?), but if I come back in May for my 20th grad-school reunion, at midnight after campus dance it’s the Chafee garden where you’ll find me—although I better watch my back, because a peek at street view shows a sign that DPS has gotten wise.