Some nice things I have missed

What an incredible time I had last weekend at the 2008 UVA Reunion where the Classes of 2003, 1998, 1993, 1988, and so on, were invited to the University for its annual reunion weekend. This is the one time every five years when alums can return to campus and expect to regularly run into some of the people who made their University experience the special time that it was.

I spent the weekend attending class dinners, dance parties, talks by prominent members of the faculty and mini-reunion events organized across dorms and campus organizations. Throughout the weekend I was constantly reminded of several things that make the University a unique place where I received a college experience that was second to none.

The first is that the University is a place steeped in history. During the lecture by an architecture professor on the design of the Lawn and the Rotunda, it dawned on me that when I walk by certain parts of campus I am literally walking the steps once taken by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe – three former U.S. Presidents who played a role in the founding of the University. Even though UNC is at least 20 years older than UVA, I don’t have the same sense of history when I walk the campus of UNC. Thesecond is the commonality among those who attended this institution. I remember when I first started working I got an email from a friend asking how the working world was different and I told him that while I always had no difficulty finding commonality with my classmates at UVA, I had trouble finding a similar commonality with people I was meeting outside of school. On Saturday night when after the class dinners, we had a performance on the steps of the Rotunda by current and alumni members of the acapella group Academical Village People. It ended with the UVA President joining the performers in linking arms across shoulders and leading the audience to a rendition of the Good Old Song. There was no more powerful demonstration of this common bond than to see the Lawn littered with alums all proceeding to join hands to sing. Lastly, the University serves as a place where I often get randomly reconnected to people whom I have had encounters with in the past. I was at the Rotunda Dome Room talking to a 2004 alum who was there to help plan her five year reunion next summer. She mentioned that her sister was my year and when I saw her last name on her name tag, I knew exactly who her sister was. Later that day I was at a book signing by NBC reporter and 1983 alum Sarah James, who looks nothing in person like she does on TV by the way, and overheard two women talking. I heard one say she was an economist and when I looked at her name tag, I realized she was a 1978 alum whom I had an on campus job interview with ten years ago during my senior year.

What was without a doubt the best part of the weekend was catching up with the people I graduated with. But the most interesting aspect was what was left unsaid. There is this guy who was your typical pre-law, student government type. I didn’t particularly like the guy and didn’t talk to him at the reunion but each I saw him I smirked at just how fat he’s gotten and how much he resembles Chief Wiggums from the Simpsons. He was nowhere this fat at the last reunion. Another thing that’s changed since the last reunion is that one particular couple is no longer together. The two have since gone their separate ways, gotten married, and went to the reunion with their respective spouses. They strategically made sure they were nowhere near one another at the class dinner.

Every time I reminisce about my college experience, I feel like the main character in the movie Stand By Me looking back to his years growing up. The movie endswith him saying the following words “I never had friends later onlike the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”