In a strange turn of events, I found myself driving to State College, Pennsylvania, last October for an advanced yoga teaching certification exam. While the timing and the situation was a bit surreal—taking a two-day yoga test on the outskirts of one of the biggest football schools in the country during its homecoming weekend—I was able to inject some normalcy into my time there by meeting up with Jon Eburne. Adding to the surreal nature of the trip was getting a glimpse of the election while driving through mid-Pennsylvania during October of 2016: there were Trump signs everywhere.

I had breakfast with Jon on the morning of my big test and felt as though I was traveling back more than two decades. A former Russell Sage dormmate freshman year and for perhaps six months or so one of my housemates in Norwich, Vermont, after graduation, Jon is now a professor of comparative literature at Penn State. I hadn’t seen him in more than 20 years, when my husband stayed with him in Philly as we were driving cross-country; Jon was then in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania.

I didn’t get to meet Jon’s wife, Hester Blum, also a professor of comparative literature, and daughter Adelaide. His years on Dartmouth’s rugby team had taken their toll, but otherwise he hadn’t changed—the same witty, thoughtful and fun person I met my freshman fall. While the trip was a haul from where I live (a nine-hour drive), I had such a great time that I wouldn’t mind making it again and meeting the rest of his family.

—Suzanne Spencer Rendahl, 224 Route 120, Plainfield, NH 03781; suzandj@comcast.net