If you’ll indulge, I’m spending the next two blog entries posting about things that happened at my 35th college reunion this last week before returning with our Top 10 on June 6th.
June 1, 4:51 a.m. — I stole a glance at the clock and Ray Bradbury references started flowing through my head.
Before starting the car, I pulled out a black thumb drive with a picture of a red-headed friend of mine named Gail. She died last year, and she made part of her living DJ-ing at alternative clubs.
The first words that game out of the Pioneer stereo system speakers were from the KMFDM song “Vogue”:
Hello, teenage America.
This reunion weekend was all about reliving our late teen years and hurtling headlong into adulthood. The Gail thumbdrive would be one of several I would plug into my car stereo to keep me company. Must get coffee.
June 1, 5:30 a.m. — In terms of preparation for this reunion trip, my first test was passed: the sensors for the EZPass for the Baltimore harbor tunnel picked up my transponder. I had gone to the DMV office to get it checked because more than half of my trips the last few weeks on toll roads did not pick up the transponder.
The nice clerk gave me several sticky patches of Velcro to attach the transponder permanently to the windshield. I had been using a pouch that I had been attaching to the underside of the windowshade.
The reason: I didn’t want to give any overzealous police force an excuse to stop me because of a blocked windshield. I didn’t like losing about eight square inches of visibility. But I was going to need the transponder because I would be going through toll stations in five states. And I’m thankful for the ability to pay electronically because I remember what it was like to have to have coins and cash on holiday weekends, where the takers would sometimes wave substantial numbers of drivers through because of the miles-long backups.
June 1, 2 p.m. — And you may ask yourself, how do I work this?
I have arrived at a parking garage north of campus and found out that, unlike reunions of the past, there was not a host of “minions”, or undergraduates on work-study, to help transport luggage. The schedule had changed for the way reunions work here: instead of them being held the week of graduation, they are all now held the week after graduation and just before summer sessions begin.
I didn’t need help to do much in the way of carrying items; I was told I could drive the car into a loading area, offload, then get the car back to the garage, where it would be until Sunday. An undergraduate volunteer (who I will call Jill) helped guide me (with some help from Apple Maps) telling me why I didn’t need to go through a particular road since, in a three-block area, the road goes from one-way to one-way the other way, then back to one-way in the original direction.
June 1, 7:30 p.m. — Fashionably late, as usual.
I remember the Holyoke Center as a place which was more known for the chess hustlers playing out in front of the Au Bon Pain and having offices throughout its concrete brutalism. But the building has been re-imagined with lots of glass and wood and the space we had for our opening reception was remarkable for its cheerfulness.
I had been in touch with many of my classmates from Facebook for most of the last 10 years, so there weren’t many surprises in terms of what people were up to.
Our class has done some cool things, and one of our number was one of only a handful of people to get an exclusive interview with the late entertainer Prince Rogers Nelson. A couple of us serenaded us with a public media theme to celebrate his new job as a curator and creative director — until we realized we were singing a National Public Radio theme rather than a Public Broadcasting Service theme.
Whoops.
June 2, 8 a.m. — The liquor store where the old convenience store used to be was open for business, but I was not interested in a potent potable. I instead was looking for a couple of useful tchochkes. At the 25th and 30th reunions, this store had wonderful latte bowls that I use to this day.
Instead, the place was littered with T-shirts for the local pro sports teams, and a couple of magnets. Hey, here’s one I actually need: a bottle opener. On those occasions when I open a pop bottle without a screwoff cap, I can never find one when I need one and I have to go into the drawer to get a Swiss Army knife.
June 2, 10:45 a.m. — There I was, wearing a jacket over a polyester shirt.
Big, big mistake. I started overheating and felt the need to sit down under a tree. When I cooled off a bit, I went back inside the main headquarters and watched the livestream in air-conditioned comfort.
Turns out the temperature reached 90 degrees. Not so good for a cancer patient.
June 2, 2 p.m. — I just became a “meta.” A picture of me and one of my classmates, uploaded with a hashtag through Instagram, is on heavy rotation in the luncheon area. The meta is the fact that this is a selfie of a selfie.
Now, a word about the colors I’m wearing on the striped blazer (for those of you reading this for the first time). Harvard only adopted the color crimson (Pantone 187) around 1910. There had been use of the color magenta in the late 1800s, chiefly because it was a trendy color. An 1864 crew race featured the Harvard team wearing magenta bandanas; indeed, when the school newspaper started publication 150 years ago, the original name of the paper was The Harvard Magenta.
June 2, 6:30 p.m. — I got a social media post: our party to give our classmate from South Carolina her first “scorpion bowl” (a communal alcoholic drink which has been a ritual for undergraduates since the restaurant’s opening in 1954), had been moved three hours earlier.
As we sipped on straws, stories came out about love, life, and loss. I was careful to ask the bartender about the content of the bowl: he assured me there was no grapefruit juice in the recipe since it reacts badly to one of my medications.
The weather had turned during the day from hot and sunny to cold and rainy with thunderstorms. As we were to have a dinner party outdoors under a tent, I knew it didn’t look good. And by 8 p.m., I was right; the dinner was completely wiped off the schedule and we’d be getting refunds.
Which is too bad because we could always use the opportunity to regroup after 35 years, tell storied, and recall the glories of our teenage and young adult lives.
I would have loved to have taken part but I took an EKG. “Possible afibrillation,” the readout came. I took an extra heart pill, drank some water, and lay down.
