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Several bathrooms stalls on campus have riddles scrawled in them about "duclods."
For example, in the science building - "Q: What would a duclod like about the land of
the giants? A: Standing in two closets without touching either doorknob." The jokes
don't make much sense, and most students who see them don't give them a second thought.
But for at least eight or nine years, maybe more, someone has been anonymously sending
peculiar letters to certain students with further references to duclods. While any
motive or purpose is conjecture, some students and parents are unsettled, and Student
Affairs is stumped.
For the most part, the method and form of the letter have been constant. They are
almost always sent to seniors. They are hand-addressed, sent to the student's home
address. The letters are made in the style of a fold-out greeting card. Inside, duclods
are described as "bisexual, homophobic, heterophobic, confused." Other pages may list
duclod jokes, or an "actual headstone inscription: Duclods Die Twice."
Understandably, many recipients have been confused or disconcerted by the
letters, and have reported them to Student Affairs. Dean of Residence Life Jennifer
Krohn came to Grinnell in 1989, and got her first report of a duclod letter in 1991 or
1992. Since then, she says not a year has gone by without someone getting one. In the
past she's turned in some of the letters to the Grinnell police department, but since
the inception of the new security office in 1998, all letters go to Security Chief
Steve Briscoe.
There is no apparent system in which students are targeted. In the past, Krohn
says, it seemed that GLBT students were being singled out, but over time just as many
straight students as openly gay students have gotten them. She reasons that many, if
not the majority of letters go unreported.
"It's just really weird," says RLC John Mounsey, who poked around the Internet
recently looking for duclod references. All he found were more "jokes" posted in online
humor forums—no indications that this exists outside of Grinnell. "It's almost like an
urban legend... " he says. "Grinnell's great mystery."
The letters are postmarked from all over the country. The security office's 1998-
1999 file contains letters sent from Jackson and Nashville, TN, Worchester and Boston,
MA, Palantine, IL and Little Rock, AK. Several were sent from New Hampshire last school
year and two received last semester came from Tucson, AZ. Since students get them at
home, whoever sends them must have access to a student directory at least as new as
Fall 1997 (the youngest recipients are in the class of '01). Most (but not all) were
mailed during breaks, suggesting that the sender is tied to Grinnell when class is in
session.
Stranger still is the fact that friends tend to get them about the same time,
suggesting that the sender can observe social patterns at Grinnell. "It has to be a
student," Mounsey asserts. "There's no way around it." But if that is the case, then
how has it continued for so long? Is it a tradition of sorts, passed from year to
year? And if so, why hasn't anyone heard anything about it?
Steve Briscoe did some investigation in '98-'99 with the help of Computer
Services, looking into a web address found in some of the cards. It turned out to be a
dead end, but he still wants to hire a "student with a lot of computer knowledge" to
work solely on this case.
As for a purpose to the letters, all anyone has is speculation. Some students
suggested that the culprit(s) send them to home addresses so parents will open them.
The material has an air of homophobic propaganda: "duclod – a dual closet dweller; one
(usually bisexual) who hides in two closets." Perhaps the sender is trying to out
certain students to their parents. Even if that isn't the goal, some parents have
opened them and called Student Affairs or security to complain.
It is also unclear how or if this would be defined as a crime—harassment,
perhaps. At least some students and parents have taken it that way. "It upsets a number
of people who don't need to be upset," Krohn says. "I'd like it to stop."
It will remain to be seen if the letters will continue, and for how long. Security and
Student Affairs would appreciate any information students can provide on the matter.
Increasing awareness of the whole business can only serve to bring it into the open or
drive it further into the shadows, but until something breaks in the mystery, it will remain
one of the strangest bits of underground Grinnell.