{"id":2362,"date":"2011-05-16T22:42:02","date_gmt":"2011-05-17T02:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=2362"},"modified":"2011-05-16T22:42:02","modified_gmt":"2011-05-17T02:42:02","slug":"reunion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=2362","title":{"rendered":"Reunion"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Closeup\u00a0Page<\/a> | About Life Page<\/a><\/p>\n

Reunion<\/h2>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Just back from my 40th<\/sup> college reunion.\u00a0 If such occasions don\u2019t drag out the deepest feelings in a person, nothing will.\u00a0 In my case, there was a thin veneer of enjoyment, but a much thicker layer of gloom just beneath it.\u00a0 The enjoyment came from the party, from seeing a few old familiar faces, and from drawing in a few breaths of the vitality of the place.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was the reminder of how old I\u2019d become \u2013 and how quickly \u2013 that sucked so.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t wish to minimize the fun of the party and the old faces.\u00a0 But there were, at least for me, a couple of reasons why I wasn\u2019t delirious from what the party and my fellow-alums contributed to the experience.\u00a0 I attended one of the great research universities, and, inevitably, I\u2019d drawn my circle of friends from a small group, many of whom were not even in my class.\u00a0 So my intimate friends weren\u2019t there; obviously some of the others were luckier in that respect than I was.\u00a0 But I think what I have to say might hold for them as well as me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Open House Visa<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When a great university holds a campus-wide party, the returning alum will almost certainly be exposed to parts of it he or she never experienced when young.\u00a0 In my case, over two days, I: a) attended a marvelous photo exhibition in an art gallery, b) watched a panel discussion at the business school in which weighty issues of business ethics were debated, c) got a chance to play along with a student jazz ensemble, d) heard the university president present the institution\u2019s recent staggering successes, e) listened to a glee ensemble sing and a marching band play, f) sat in and gossiped at a writers\u2019 house, g) likewise gossiped at the student newspaper, and h) looked in on the university press and chatted with the staff about the future of scholarly publishing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How much of this was revisiting old haunts?\u00a0 Almost none of it.\u00a0 I\u2019d written a bit for the student newspaper.\u00a0 Other than that, I was visiting little worlds within the vast universe of a great university that in four years there I had never been to before.\u00a0 Some had certainly formed since my time.\u00a0 But the fact was that for me, and probably for most of my fellow-undergrads, there had been an unreflective choice of but one world or two at a time when it might have been possible to become a citizen of many.\u00a0 And now we could only cross those borders under the temporary visa of an open house.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Doors we had never even thought were open had closed behind us, years ago.\u00a0 And now we could see them, quite clearly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Naming the Wound<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The university president, in her early-morning talk, had diagnosed very precisely the discontent engendered by visiting all of this magnificence.\u00a0 We would love to come back and be young here again, she said.\u00a0 But, she added, that was not possible, so we would have to content ourselves with other things, like, of course, staying identified with and contributing financially to, the institution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I shall do those things, naturally, and I\u2019m sure they will help.\u00a0 But they will not eradicate the really burning frustration at having squandered all those riches of experience when there was a chance to enjoy them more fully.\u00a0 It is, after all, our 40th<\/sup> reunion, and we cannot truly go back.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, we are truly growing old.\u00a0 This fact kept peeping out from the faces of my fellow-alums.\u00a0 Age has differentiated us from each other much more than youth did.\u00a0 If you look at our freshman facebook, which I still keep, we look so similar!\u00a0 Almost all the girls with long straight dark hair, all the boys well-kempt and with miraculously unlined faces.\u00a0 As we get bald, and our hair makes various compromises with grey and with white, as the spots and the wrinkles visit us, we are a more varied lot; we differ from each other as our parents and grandparents did.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And I catch us sounding like parents and grandparents as well.\u00a0 Many of us are retired, and many of those who are retired seem content to be so.\u00a0 And the calendar says this accession to done-with-ness is justified.\u00a0 Twice 40 is 80, and few of us will attend our 80th<\/sup>; we are, most of us, more than halfway from the cap-and-gown to the grave.\u00a0 So here we are, becoming the done-with-it generation, in the very place where youth and possibility are most celebrated and fostered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is hard, given that juxtaposition, not to be mournful.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ankles Be Damned<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What did lift the spirits was the dance on the second night.\u00a0 We partied for a little while like it was 1969.\u00a0 And we still could, still had the capacity to do so.\u00a0 Let this be reported: we truly could still dance the night away.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure there were some sore ankles the next morning.\u00a0 I know mine were sore, but I can recall ankles like that at much earlier ages.\u00a0 We had the youth and vitality left to party hearty.\u00a0 For that I am truly thankful, and I intend to hang onto that capacity for as long as I humanly can.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Indeed, I\u2019d make so bold as to wonder if some of this widespread resignation to the dying of the career light may be only a breather.\u00a0 Modern medicine is apt to keep us here, if not quite to our 80th<\/sup> reunions, still through a substantial number of intervening ones. \u00a0I continue to hope against hope that the world can reconcile itself to finding ways other than manufacturing party-times for us, to accommodate our continuing curiosities, energies, and need for the validation that only the workplace provides, through the many anniversaries that we incipiently old alums are likely to enjoy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Until we each are felled by whatever nastiness fate has stored up for us, I anticipate that each of us will say with Tennyson\u2019s Ulysses:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though much is taken, much abides; and though<\/address>\n
We are not now that strength which in the old days<\/address>\n
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,<\/address>\n
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,<\/address>\n
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will<\/address>\n
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.<\/address>\n

Copyright (c) Jack L. B. Gohn<\/p>\n

The Closeup Page<\/a> | About Life Page<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For me and most of my fellow-undergrads, there had been an unreflective choice of but one world or two at a time when it might have been possible to become a citizen of many. And now we could only cross those borders under the temporary visa of an open house. Doors we had never even thought were open had closed behind us, years ago. And now we could see them, quite clearly. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1917,4],"tags":[2733,2724,2728,2729,2725,2732,2727,2730,2731,2726],"class_list":["post-2362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-life","category-closeup","tag-2733","tag-40th-reunion","tag-aging","tag-alfred-lord-tennyson","tag-college-reunion","tag-facebooks","tag-research-universities","tag-tennyson","tag-ulysses","tag-university-reunion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2362"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4731,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362\/revisions\/4731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}