That's why Princeton reunions is such an interesting and fun event for me. It's a reminder of a seminal time in my life and one for which I am extremely grateful - college. For those of you who are unaware of the implications of this event beyond the typical college reunion, Princeton University reunions are the most well-attended college reunions in the world. This year, in addition to boasting a member of the Class of 1925 in attendance, Princeton reunions once again proved itself the world's largest annual alcohol consumption event (the Fifth Year Reunion tent alone went through over 400 kegs of beer in three days).
Class of 1925, the man behind these beautiful Scottish bagpipers is nearly 110 years old...amazing dedication. Photo courtesy of the Princeton Alumni Weekly.
To say that this is a college reunion is a gross understatement; it is an alternate universe where for a weekend the real world disappears. This world is experienced vicariously through academic panels with distinguished speakers, reminiscing on college memories with friends, cover bands from all decades that take you back to sophomore spring lawn parties, art exhibits that make you feel like a college student again, a parade of hideous orange and black costumes that present the Princeton diaspora to the world, and a massive fireworks display that make even the most grizzled, cynical, and weathered alumni feel like kids again. This world is fueled by catered meals and unfathomable amounts of free alcohol. For one weekend, an entire university campus is transformed into an outdoor party worthy of Rome.
Gen fills a beer in the Tiger Inn taproom, the site of many a long college night. This was the final day for the taproom before it is torn down and renovated (nostalgic tear).
Yet at the same time, I was supremely conscious of how today's Gen, age 27 years, is no longer the Gen of circa 2002-2006. I'm older, wiser (hopefully), more cautious, more career-obsessed, more focused on my future. I am happily in love with a new wonderful woman who just happens to be the beautiful, intelligent, Francophonic co-author of this blog. I moved to New York City to wander into one career path, only to switch gears midway, to switch back again in Washington, DC, and then pull a fake-out switch...ending up in business school in St. Louis. In the years since I've graduated, a minority has been elected President, Three 6 Mafia has won its first Academy Award along with Martin Scorsese, and Osama bin Laden has been killed. So, a lot has changed for me and my place in this spinning world.
Leaving the fifth reunion tent, smartphone in hand. Back in my day, we didn't have fancy phones. We had flip-phones like the ones that Nadia and Cory Landerfelt still use.
And as for the future, well at this fifth reunion for the first time I felt that I could safely and carefully pack away a lot of my Princeton experience in the closet, metaphorically speaking, for safe-keeping and remembrance. I'm in graduate school, so I no longer need to lean on my undergraduate degree for applications. I'm starting a new job in a new industry where no one cares that I went to Princeton. And after having lived in New York, Washington, DC, and St. Louis for the past five years, I have experienced the rude awakening that Princeton is not the real world. And by not the real world, I mean not even close. Very few places in this world have student dwellings with gorgeous gothic architecture, subsidized meals, tap-rooms with flowing beer every evening, worldly accomplished guest speakers daily, and average SAT scores north of the 98th percentile. Very few places are as ethnically, politically, and lifestyle-diverse as Princeton. And very few places are as economically privileged as the students, faculty, and alumni of Princeton University. Perhaps I am sounding sadly typical and naive, and in a way you are probably right. I can't help but feel sheepish about my mindset during my college years...As if living in castles, taking classes in cathedrals, and partying in mansions could even pass for normal.
The fact of the matter is, when you are five years out of Princeton, you feel old. Perhaps it's because it is the first landmark reunion after graduation that everyone goes to. Perhaps it is because my friends who entered medical or law school upon graduation now have titles such as "Doctor" and "Esquire". Perhaps is particularly because I was asked by an undergraduate while casually filling my beer and making conversation, "Soooo...how are the first five years out?" I think I had what would be classified as a panic attack trying to answer this question. The point is, in aggregate, such things make you feel old, and not only because all of the undergraduate guys these days wear tanktops and look like they are 14 and the undergraduate girls wear bikinis and look like they are 12. I'm dead serious. This was an odd phenomenon.
I feel older, with my compass pointed toward the uncharted waters of the future, because Gen Gillespie, Princeton University Class of 2006, no longer defines my life. This is not to say that I am blind to my past -- I am fiercely proud of what I accomplished at Princeton. I was handpicked out of Salina South High School, in Salina, Kansas -- the only student from Salina to ever attend Princeton. But ultimately, history is history. It is a small thread of the fabric of the now, and now is all that matters. Now, it is Gen Gillespie, Intern at Company Awesome, Gen Gillespie, MBA candidate, Gen Gillespie, boyfriend of Nadia. Princeton is the past...I lived it once, that was good enough. Today, the future has so much more potential, at least until online registration for my sixth reunion opens next spring.
An Ode to Reunions
People tell me
How they thought it was
Way back then.
They tell me
How they remembered it.
And I tried to say
It wasn't exactly like that.
We were boys and girls
Flesh and blood
And we played in the sunshine
Studied in the dark
We went off the wall
We had fights, and we made love.
We sang songs and drank beer.
Before games.
We were real. Yeah. We laughed and cried.
We felt pain. And we felt joy.
There was a lot wrong with the world.
There still is.
But we weren't sad, man.
We had the times of our lives.
We tell them that for five years.
They hear. But they didn't understand.
They tried to understand, but you had to be there.
I completely agree that there’s something special and sustaining about nostalgia for the past and that we all enjoy bringing it up and reminiscing but I’d argue that one thing which I think your post is lacking and that also needs to be acknowledged is that the past that we relive and look back upon fondly often consists of selective, sometimes glorified memories. After all, when I remember where I am on what Gen references as a significant historical event (say for example 9/11) I’m remembering one very small part of that day that I’m holding on to as a representative moment and that in my mind’s retelling has acquired emphasis and connotation that was not in the real moment. When I’m holding on to those trophies or photographs that Gen references, I’m not also holding on to the times I rode the bench to get there, or actually felt sort of bored at that school dance, but just the golden moment that it’s become for me.
ReplyDeleteAnd if we’re being honest, isn’t the way you feel when you now look back upon time in college sort of that way? And isn’t part of Reunions being able for three days to remember everything at its best? And isn’t it just a bit disingenuous that between the event tickets, hotel stay, and travel, alumni pay hundreds of dollars, to be able to remember their college years and retell them a particular way? I mean don’t get me wrong it was a hell of a party, I had a great time, and no one’s going to rip on a fire work show to rival bastille day in Paris (I’m not kidding, it really was that good) but aren’t we all a bit better off if we also acknowledge realities that don’t go mentioned too (the classmates that never quite graduated, how incredibly white and affluent ivy league undergraduate bodies remain, the professors that forgot our names, the friends who got date raped, etc.) and don’t buy in totally to fabricated loyalties because a school that’s lucky to have incredible resources sells it to us that way. I mean to give you an example, when we saw groups of older alumni (say class of 65) in their orange and black matching beer jackets and Princeton hats walking in the P-rade, we saw a lot of old couples cheering and walking together, smiling and waving the class flags and signs with a lot of energy. And those couples can think of it as their thing and throw money at its endowment all they want but the fact is that they didn’t go there as a couple. It wasn’t a joint thing. Women weren’t allowed to attend. And I think those sort of realities are worth acknowledging too. I mean, turning back tot hat example,maybe because we know it wasn’t co-ed then, that’s why we enjoyed cheering for the women marching in the P-rade’s class of 1969 (the first year they did let women in)for what they earned and the shit that they probably had to put up with.
Also, I just have to call you out on it, there’s no way that stat about Princeton being the world’s largest annual alcohol consumption event is true (um try carnaval and/or trust me at an MSU tailgate vs. u of m, more beer is drank) and even if it is, is that really something an eminent institution wants to brag about? Penn certainly wouldn’t ;)
Finally, thank you my dear love for defining college as “beer bong, baseball, late night tail-chasing, early morning walks of shame, all-night stud sessions, and other unhealthy habits of all sorts included.” I wouldn’t define it that way. But then again, I didn’t play baseball.