Berntson and Ritchie throw a line in for some fish.

Thomas McKenna | COLLEGIAN

 

“Hey you — yeah, you — come up here!”

That’s senior Maria Ritchie shouting down to the dark sidewalk from the string light-wrapped porch of Graceland, an off-campus house on Manning Street.

Who is she shouting at? 

She doesn’t know. In the darkness of a Saturday night, Ritchie and her porch-swing pal, senior Stephen Berntson, can’t see who is walking along Manning Street. But they call out to the unknown anyway, inviting a stranger to the Graceland porch. They are “Manning Fishing.”

“Here’s how it works,” said Berntson, swinging with Ritchie while smoking a cigarette. “People are walking. They’ve been to a party. They’re maybe going to another party or going home. Maybe they don’t really know where to go. But we offer them a place, and we say, ‘Come here!’”

If a stranger in the darkness accepts the offer, they walk up to the porch. Only then does the Graceland porch see who they’ve caught.

“Sometimes people just come and go. They stop and say hi,” Ritchie said. “Sometimes, they stay for hours.”

Last Saturday night around 10:30 p.m., they caught junior Jack Foley, who was celebrating his 21st birthday.

“I got caught with kindness,” Foley said. “A very pleasant surprise on my birthday.”

Foley said he knew most of the people calling him over.

“Oh my goodness, when it’s people we know, it’s the most joyous event,” Berntson said. “Because it’s like, ‘Hey, come to Graceland porch. We don’t know who you are.’ And then it’s somebody we know, and they run up to our porch, and we’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, stay a while.’”

The two seniors began to fish last year when Berntson lived at Graceland. Neither remembers exactly when the two first fished on Manning, but Ritchie thinks it was last fall. She remembers when the name for the activity was coined.

“It was a light bulb moment,” Ritchie said. “We realized that we were up here on this stationary spot, and the people on the sidewalk are moving along, and we can’t see them, but they can see us. So it’s a little bit like casting a lure in the darkness, kind of like fishing. So we called it ‘Manning Fishing,’ and it’s a good term. It’s a darn good term.”

Ritchie, Berntson, and others have continued the tradition now that Ritchie and other seniors in Chi Omega live in the house.

“I personally think the ‘Yeah, you,’ is one of the most important parts,” Ritchie said. “People don’t think you’re talking to them. But when you say, ‘Yeah, you,’ everybody’s heads spin toward the Graceland porch.”

Why fish from Graceland?

“The high vantage point,” Ritchie shouted from the swing as “Come On, Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners played on the crowded porch.

Graceland sits on top of a hill about 30 feet back from the unlit sidewalk. Those on the porch can spot but not identify those walking by, and those on the sidewalk can see who is calling.

“If we’re sitting on this bench swing, we are either pre-gaming or post-gaming,” Berntson said. “If it’s pre-gaming, you have some energy about you. You’re thinking, ‘What’s up? We’re going to the same place. If it’s post-gaming, it’s more mysterious because it’s, ‘Where were you?’ You could have been at any place. In fact, we learn a lot about what happened in the night by the people that we Manning-fish.”

The fishers of men don’t always catch students.

“We called up a random person who had a dog with them,” Berntson said. “It ended up being an old man who was clearly not a student, but he had such a cute dog, and he was such a friendly person. He brought his dog up to the porch, and we had a great conversation with him.”

This pastime would probably not work at other schools, Berntson and Ritchie both agreed.

“It can only really exist in a high trust society like Hillsdale College where we all know each other,” Berntson said.

On Manning Street, students, mostly seniors living off campus, occupy the houses rolling down three blocks from the Civil War statue to the bottom of the hill. The street’s community makes it feel like ‘one big dorm,’ Berntson said.

“We have a Manning group chat. We have trust. We all know each other because we’re typically the same class,” Berntson said. “If you’re hanging at a party on Manning Street, so many people are backing you up. You’re safe on Manning Street.”