GOING BACK

1930 Wedgewood dinner plate featuring Princeton University’s Blair Hall - my home for two years. One of a series of twelve plates featuring Princeton campus landmarks.

Let’s go back to Princeton
At commencement time,
Sample each reunion:
That’s the life for mine!
Ramble round the campus,
Full of jollity,
Our location for celebration
Is New Jersee.

Going back, going back,
Going back to Nassau Hall.
Going back, going back,
To the best old place of all.
Going back, going back,
From all this earthly ball.
We’ll clear the track as we go back,
Going back to Nassau Hall.

(from Going Back to Nassau Hall - Kenneth S. Clark 1905)

Yes, beginning tomorrow, thousands of alumni will gather in Princeton, New Jersey for yet another massive bout of nostalgia, camaraderie, and drinkage. Reunions!

Reunions are held every year, but it’s been our tradition to attend every five years... and thus, we will get on the Great Silver Aerial Bus Friday morning and make the journey to that “one and only University, situated and celebrated In New Jersee” for my thirty-fifth Class Reunion.

Yes, Esteemed Readers - it has been that long. Gaaaahhh!

It’ll be different this year, because for the very first time ever, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I will be unaccompanied by Offspring. Elder Daughter attended her first Reunion in 1979 at the tender age of three weeks. From 1984 on, both girls accompanied us... until 2004, when Elder Daughter was unable to attend due to the demands of her job (!) It’s the inevitable result of the Passage of Time.

Highlights will include the one and only P-Rade, in which alumni and their families representing every class (up to and including this year’s graduates) march through the campus, each class attired in its distinctive uniform, and a fireworks show that is an out-and out extravaganza. But for me, the best part is seeing old friends... and getting better acquainted with classmates that I didn’t get to know as well as I’d have liked to Back In The Day.

Hey, I might even run into a blogger or two...