Back in March I asked a classmate whether she was coming to the reunion. With the horrified expression of a gangster being pushed to exit the witness protection program, she whispered, “What if I meet somebody I know?”
For those fortunate enough to be in Hanover for the weekend starting on Juneteenth and ending June 22, we certainly met people we knew. We had the great joy of reconnecting with people we’d studied with, played with, lived with, and did other things with somewhere between 1975 and 1979.
We also experienced the even more extravagant pleasure of meeting folks we’d never known—or, to put a finer point on it, had never met as adult human beings.
Turns out the people we are now are amazing.
You don’t play 68 the way you play 21; there are different cards on the table. Forget the competition, the stings of wins and losses, the experts against the novices. We were all in it together.
Applause, whistles, and shouts to those who made it all happen with guts and grace: Jennifer Hughes, Ken Beer, Margaret Avril Lawson, Bill Mitchell, Jim Wasz, Mark Winkler, Pat Pannell, Mitch Lavigne (who took fabulous photographs), Peter Greulich, and if I omit a crucial heavy-lifter, I apologize in advance and can only claim that, unlike my brilliant and dedicated predecessor Janie Simms Hamner, I am still new to this assignment. Please send me corrections, additions, edits, and suggestions. I’ll try to make good on them in future updates.
Highlights? A lot. The art exhibition curated by Gail Frawley Patterson and Laura Powers-Swiggett was dazzling, featuring jewelry by Nancy Lager (my roommate as an undergraduate who attended with our classmate Tim Taylor, her spouse and the person who became her roommate for the rest of their lives); a portfolio of amazing illustrations by our own superhero Rick Leonardi; a must-read memoir by Polly Merritt Ingraham titled Unconverted: Memoir of a Marriage just published by Rootstock; enchanting watercolors by Phil Odence; art pieces in wood by Steve Schreiber; and powerful paintings by Don O’Bannon represented the range of imaginative creations assembled in Silsby Hall. Others had their work there as well.
Curtiss Takeda Rooks gave two presentations (no small achievement in a crowded schedule) discussing “Black Culture and Intellectual Life” (and still made time to have lively personal conversations). Rob Schreiber gave a standing-room-only talk about how we can age well or at least better—to age with gusto is what matters.
Part of aging well is to embrace and cherish relationships, cultivating new ones as well as nourishing those already carved into the granite of our brains (is that how the song goes?). I talked with Reuben Stokes, David Stone, and Judy Ornstein, who I usually only see on Facebook, and danced with Nancy Wilder, Laurie Rosenfield, Polly Ingraham, and Peggy Epstein Tanner to “Respect” and “Stayin’ Alive.”
Like the hokey-pokey, that’s what it’s all about.
Hoping to hear from you.
—Gina Barreca, 394 Browns Road, Storrs, CT 06268; gb@ginabarreca.com