Thursday, July 11, 2024

Thoughts and Impressions after a College Reunion

 


                                                        by Margaret S. Hamilton    

 


College green and reunion tents

When the reminder magnet for my upcoming Connecticut College reunion arrived in the mail, I slapped it on the refrigerator and considered attending. Between soccer tournaments, high school and college graduations and the weddings of two of our children, I hadn’t had time to attend a reunion in many years.



 

I didn’t have close college friends who planned to attend, but I had a writer friend I’d never met face to face, Shari Randall, a fellow CC graduate and New London resident. Shari and I “met” when I joined the Writers Who Kill blog in 2016. We agreed it was time and started coordinating plans.

 


Shari's favorite grove of Japanese Maples


“It will be fun,” I assured my husband. “We’ll meet people.” The fifty English majors in my graduating class all knew each other from our Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Elizabethan poetry classes. “We’ll stay in the dorms and walk everywhere.”

New London Superior Court

 

Once at the college, we spent hours hiking in the college arboretum and visiting the botanical garden. We took a tour of historic New London, including a ride in a water taxi on the Thames (rhymes with James) River, where I had rowed on the crew team. The submarines on the nearby base were still as large and terrifying as they were when we rowed next to them.

 

A double transformed into a triple


We stayed in a dorm with updated bathrooms, the original cinderblock walls covered with sheetrock. Tall trees outside our dorm window were filled with birds that tuned in at five a.m. (the sun rises an hour earlier on the east coast).

 

college athletic complex next to the Thames


When it was time for our class photo, we were asked to leave the dining room and assemble on the library steps. We all headed out the back door of Palmer Library and turned toward the front of the building. Wrong building! The college has a new library constructed behind the old one, though we agreed that “our” library would always be Palmer, where we were assigned our carrels senior year.

 


During our time at the college, the English Department was housed in Thames Hall, a ramshackle shingled building with a huge fieldstone fireplace, the original refectory from the college’s 1911 founding. It was freezing in winter, with a jumble of classrooms added on to the original structure. Faculty offices were at the top of a creaky set of stairs. It was demolished in 1990 and replaced by a similar building used for administrative offices. My fellow English majors were devastated to discover its demise. We had left our metaphorical blood, sweat, and tears in our exam bluebooks and term papers.

 


On Saturday, Shari scooped us up from campus and we headed to one of her favorite places, Harkness Memorial Park. The Harkness estate in Waterford, now owned by the State of Connecticut, has a mansion, sweeping lawns, and formal gardens overlooking Long Island Sound. What do two former CC English majors and current crime fiction writers talk about? Anything and everything, from our undergraduate classes and professors to agents and contracts. Our kids, travels, and gardens.

 


We dropped by the original New London cemetery to search for my ancestor Jonas Hamilton’s grave (d. 1738) and that of his wife, Elizabeth Wickwire, who was from a New London family. Their son, Jonathan, emigrated to Nova Scotia in 1759 with the New England Planters. The Hamilton family stayed in Nova Scotia until my great-grandfather’s move to New Haven, CT in the 1870s.

 


I was recruited by the Connecticut College dean of admissions during a field hockey game at my small Cincinnati high school. I had my interview wearing shin guards and team tunic, clutching my hockey stick. Nineteen hundred students on a beautiful Connecticut campus sounded just right. And it was.

 


Readers and writers, have you attended a college reunion?

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11 comments:

  1. I am delighted you had a good time. I have not attended reunions at any of the three colleges/universities I attended. Since I have kept in touch with none of my classmates, I don't see any reason that I would. I have revisited campuses when I happen to be in the area and am always startled by the changes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The basic layout of the college hasn't changed, but the names of some of the buildings have. Very confusing.

      Delete
  2. Sounds like a wonderful trip down memory lane and a chance to reconnect with old classmates.
    My college years were a mad scramble to juggle a job, a cheating husband, a baby, and a fierce determination to prepare myself for a probable future as a self-supporting single mother. I did it.
    I have no desire to revisit those years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kathleen, you succeeded and then built a second career as a crime writer.

      Delete
  3. What a lovely campus! I confess, I have never attended a reunion, high school, or college. The 50th anniversary of my college graduation was two months ago. The University of Miami groups reunions by some algorithm known only to them, and maybe Amazon who has equally obtuse ones. I would love to return to campus, but I fear I'd be lost, most of the buildings, already dated when I attended, have been replaced. My old dorm is there, though. Now THAT would be fun to see.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sleeping in co-ed dorms was different, though I appreciated the updated bathrooms.

      Delete
  4. Lori Roberts HerbstJuly 11, 2024 at 11:26 AM

    What fun, Margaret! I went to large colleges and high schools and probably wouldn't know/remember anyone — except the people I already stay in touch with. As a functioning introvert, even the thought of going fills me with anxiety. I'm glad you had such a good time, though!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lori, I remembered my fellow English majors and everyone was friendly. We survived 2020 and talked about what we're doing now.

      Delete
  5. This gives me hope. I haven't been able to brave a college or high school reunion yet, but maybe some day!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Everyone was friendly, especially during meals. We just sat down at the tables labeled for our class and introduced ourselves.

      Delete
  6. Debra H. GoldsteinJuly 11, 2024 at 6:29 PM

    What fun you had revisiting memories and making new ones with Shari. I'm never eager to go to a reunion, but I've always enjoyed the ones I've attended.

    ReplyDelete