APRIL 8, 2025 – (Cont.) The big day arrived, as big days are wont to do. The (single) polling place—the reception desk of the Moulton Union—opened at 8:00 a.m. and as I recall, closed 12 hours later. The logic of our campaign was that a heavy turnout would favor my candidacy, given the overwhelming (not to be confused with obnoxious) ubiquity of our advertising and historic low voter turnout for class officers. Not taking anything for granted, I made frequent furtive stops at the Union that day to check on how much of the usual foot traffic past the reception counter was stopping at the ballot box off to the side. Each time as I peeked around the corner, I was heartened by the number of people who were marking their ballots and dropping them into the box.
By 9:00 that evening, the ballots were tabulated, and I was congratulated on victory amidst a record turnout of 68% of the class. I don’t know the number of votes that were cast for “AmERICa”—but no one disputed my victory or claimed election fraud. Prune Juice was magnanimous in his outreach to me, and over the remainder of our time at the college, we became close acquaintances if not close friends.
I lost track of him after graduation until a day about eight years later when on a stop at the House of Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts during a family vacation, I pulled into a parking spot next to a car with a bumper sticker that read, “Re-elect McMANUS FOR LYNN.” Later we encountered the people of that car after completing our tour of the house made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne (a Bowdoin alumnus). I commented on their bumper sticker and proudly identified myself as a college classmate of the mayor. The couple responded spontaneously and sang their guy’s praises.
As I would learn through our alumni magazine and Jeff Oppenheim, who’d kept in touch with PJ, our ol’ friend had applied his life to family, public service, and other good works. Apparently, he and his wife had adopted a boatload of kids, and PJ had plunged into civic affairs back in his hometown of Lynn, MA. He never achieved NFL stardom, but he did serve several terms as mayor. I have no doubt that at some point Patrick J. McManus would have run for Congress—and been elected—had he not succumbed to an untimely death from cancer. I was genuinely saddened by the news when Jeff informed me.
But all that was in the future. Following my little victory back on the campus of our small New England liberal arts college, I basked in the local lime light for a few days. Classmates extended congratulations wherever they encountered me, and college administrators sent me formal letters of recognition. The Orient interviewed me, took a photo, and turned my win into a bold headline on the front page of the next issue. “NILSSON triumphs” it read next to a large photo of my smiling mug.
My “political instincts” prompted me to craft a letter to the editor of The Orient expressing thanks to all concerned. It was published under the editor’s heading, “It twern’t nothin’ at all.” (Cont.)
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
