A 9th grade English class here at Bolles began the year with their first literary work, the epic poem, Gilgamesh, and with two epic surprises: the first, a groan-worthy pun and, the second and most impressive, an incredible shirt based off of aforementioned pun.

Jackson Roberts and Adam Pooley, both freshmen enrolled in Honors English, were the two students responsible for creating the shirt. According to Jackson, the shirt started with what was “originally a bad joke” based off of the idea of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the two main characters of “Gilgamesh”, just being “chill dudes,” thus leading to the pun of “Chillgamesh and Enkidude.”

In response to the question of how they actually created the shirts, Jackson replied that it was easy, and that they “just went up to his room with soda and searched for Gilgamesh and then for sunglasses.” After successfully tracking down the images they were after, they put them together in Photoshop and then did the final step; they uploaded the image onto a shirt-creation site CustomInk and made it available to their class.

The class reception of the new shirt was as good as it could have been, a good portion of the class ordering the shirts. Even Andrew Dickson, English teacher and instructor of the 8th period class that created the pun, was a fan of the shirts. “I think they’re hilarious,” Mr. Dickson said, “I am ordering one today.”

Even those outside of the class were fans of the shirt idea, including Adam Pooley’s older brother, Robert Pooley, a senior at Bolles. “I thought it was funny”, he said when asked about the creation of the shirts. He felt strongly that the creation of the shirts was “a very creative project”, However Robert was not necessarily in favor of the shirt tradition continuing, saying that“It could get exhausted fast if it was done for every single text,” and adding that “Maybe if it was optional as extra-credit,” it would work well.

According to all four interviewees, the shirts might not have just been a one-time thing. When asked if the creation of these shirts could become a tradition for the English classes, the consensus was that it should. “Sure! Why not?” said  Mr. Dickson, “It deepens their connection with the literature.”

“That would be so cool!” was the response of Adam, with Jackson adding that “If the other classes continued that, it would be awesome!”

According to Mr. Dickson, the class responsible is “fantastic, curious, self-motivated, and has an excellent sense of humor.” The response to both the shirts and their possible continued creation has shown one major thing. There is a strong possibility that more of these shirts will be created in the future, and—who knows, maybe soon every class will be involved in the creative process.