Comments on: Time is swift and will be gone

By: Notes from the class of 1960, Dartmouth College : Historiann : History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:15:30 +0000

[...] of a fiftieth college reunion the author attended a few weeks ago. (Some of you may remember that I posted a few thoughts on my twentieth reunion last month.) I thought his observations about college then and now, and his concluding thoughts on the [...]

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:58:34 +0000

Pencils down! Like with the once-dreaded SATs, time is in limited supply, and as noted above, once they’re gone, they’re gone. Whether you just came back from your 5th or are waiting for your 25th, the reunions will stop coming when time all runs out–in *this* facility, anyway. However, if you do want to beat time at its own game, we have have a great battery of estate-planning tools and micro-naming opportunities available.

Seriously, I went to a reunion a few years back somewhat deeper into the passage of time than the one Historiann reports on here. And at my class dinner, the biggest and most central table was captured–reserved, actually–by thirteen members of a frat that will remain nameless (o.k., Phi Delta Theta), who were as facile and smug and full of themselves as they were back when _Who’s Next_ was a new record. Until toasting time, that is, when they stood en-masse and blubberingly narrated the passing of the “missiong Phi,” the cool head who would have been in the fourteenth chair. In a Spanish jail, about two years after graduation. Something about a false drug trafficking charge and corrupt local constables. It went on and on. That’s another feature of this particular cultural practice. It goes from who’s still thin to thinning hair to the thinning of the herd. Although in the subject case it kind of got all out of order!

By: Historiann

Historiann — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:11:37 +0000

I lived there too, freshman year. The bathrooms truly look the very same as the ones we all knew 23 and 24 years ago. My old room has been turned into a second-floor laundry! Tempus fugit, woman.

By: Prof. Koshary

Prof. Koshary — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:50:57 +0000

OMFG I know that dormitory!!

…Ahem.

Sorry, you stirred up my own undergrad memories there.

By: Ignatz

Ignatz — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 14:48:21 +0000

At mine, some handsome guys from college looked even better now..mmm. In fact, most people looked better. My college-within-a-big-college catered to creative types, and people were either running alt radio stations or doing public interest stuff for a career. Impressive. And the college ponied up for some good wine.

By: Comrade PhysioProf

Comrade PhysioProf — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 11:45:47 +0000

I was at homecoming one year at my old frat house for a luncheon, and asked for some beer. One of the little pissants told me they had no beer, and then five minutes later a couple other little pissants roll a full fucking keg across the room and out the back door.

So I go, “Yo, fuckhead! That’s a whole fucking keg that your little pissant compatriots just rolled across the room and out the back door! What the fuck’s up with that?” And the little pissant goes, “Oh, that’s not for you alumni. That’s for our party tonight.”

See if you can guess how much money I donated to the little pissants that year.

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 04:41:39 +0000

I’m just glad to know that you, too, were sometimes late to class. I remember being late to your classes quite a few times… sorry about that, Prof Historiann!

By: Historiann

Historiann — Mon, 31 May 2010 20:51:39 +0000

Most of us had moved on from beer to mixed drinks and wine, but there was beer to be had. Liquor enhances nostalgia, which might enhance the opening of the checkbooks, so alumnae/i weekends are fairly soaked with opportunities for marination.

Katherine–I don’t know if you’ve attended reunions before, but I’ve found all of my college reunions to be like you describe (even since the fifth reunion! I’m a total reunion junkie.) That’s why I keep going back–most people are so over themselves and they just want to reconnect with folks and hear what they’re doing and what they’re thinking about their lives. (I guess that’s why we go to reunions.) There’s very little bragging or pretense. In fact, there’s a kind of self-deprecation or modesty that people seem to bring with them, which is nice. Why try to preen or brag to people who know who you dated in college, or who remember what a dork/jerk/loser you were. I’m fortunate to have gone to school with people who truly have become much more interesting, kind, and worldly since age 18–so I assume that we’re all better women than where we started.

By: Comrade PhysioProf

Comrade PhysioProf — Mon, 31 May 2010 17:08:33 +0000

I hope those student helpers at the dorm bought you old codgers some motherfucking cases of beer!

By: Katherine

Katherine — Mon, 31 May 2010 13:12:09 +0000

I went to my 25th reunion last summer and we had many of the same observations, especially about the dorms. I’m not sure how my back survived those beds–guess 25 years does a job on more than waist line. What I loved was that people I never talked to treated me like a long-lost friend, and how many of my classmates were doing interesting and worthwhile things. I found it quite encouraging to know they were out there.