We do not often consider ‘play’ to be a part of a ‘people’s history’ — what does the student creation of a two-story tree house in the middle of the golf course tell us about marginalization and resistance? We believe that there are many ways of resisting, of protecting oneself and ones peers from being kept in a box of what it means to be ‘a Middlebury College student’ subordinate to faculty and administration, docile and complacent compliers with the status quo. Playing resists not only the Protest Work Ethic, but the Middlebury Work Ethic that says students must be students and nothing else. There are so many different ways of being and here we chronicle the stories of members of the Middlebury community who stepped beyond boundaries and had the audacity to take themselves less seriously, to challenge the hegemony of practicality, and to simply have fun.