75th Reunion

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My father graduated from Cornell University in 1949 along with about 2,000 other people. He was one of just four who returned last weekend for their 75th reunion.

It’s quite an accomplishment!

Dad had a great time. He sang the alma mater and other school songs and reminisced with his three classmates about how much has changed and how it’s all still the same.

One woman recalled, among other things, that female students had a curfew of 10 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on weekends. Another chimed in: “The men had none!”

They talked about how the school mascot was once an actual bear cub that was transported to and from football games and how bootleggers brought moonshine to the chemistry lab to be tested during prohibition.

One alumnus from the class of 1954 told a story about a date he went on that didn’t go well. He wanted to make it up to the woman by taking her out to dinner. She refused and wrote him a “Dear John” letter asking to be left alone.

The man kept that letter for 70 years. After he was widowed and heard that her partner had died, he reached out again and said: “What about that dinner?” They are now dating and came back to reunion together.

Dad appreciated the school spirit, that the event was well organized and that Cornell’s president gave a shout out by name to each member of the class of ‘49.

The highlight for me was Dad taking my mother and I on a walking tour of campus, including the engineering buildings where he studied.

What struck me is how he knew every building by its location and could point them out, from Baker Lab (chemistry) to Rand Hall (arts and architecture.)

This was all the more remarkable because my father’s eyesight isn’t good. He couldn’t really see the buildings, he just remembered where they were supposed to be.

And for the most part, they were.

Cornell is one of those dwindling number of places in the world where from one vantage point it appears little has been altered. And yet, from another, it’s completely different.

The refrain among younger alumni was about how many new buildings had sprung up. How there were recent political protests. How it has all changed!

The new buildings, such as the computer science hall named for Bill and Melinda Gates, weren’t on my fathers mental map. But every structure and statue he remembered was still standing.

We walked down to cross Thurston Avenue Bridge over the gorge and then took the path back behind Uris library until we got to the Slope to admire the view.

The scene seemed familiar and I realized I knew it from family photos.

I took out my phone and found the snapshot of my 17-year-old father sitting on a bench with his parents in about the same spot in 1944.

He was in uniform, an incoming freshman, atop a hill which he and his classmates would sled down that winter on trays from the food hall.

In the background you could see McFaddin and Lyon Halls.

So much lay ahead. Beyond school there was the looming war, marriage, a career as an electrical engineer and kids.

When you are young you can’t always appreciate the significance of such moments.

You aren’t thinking that someday you may return and what a blessing it will be.

I took a picture bridging those 80 years.

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BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

NEVERMORE: So many writers are undervalued in life.

DELL COMPUTER: Michael Dell’s parents didn’t want him to drop out of college. He convinced them otherwise by showing them revenue from his PC business.

GEN Z: I still carry a wallet. It’s annoyingly thick and mostly unnecessary.

INFLATION: The cost of everything seems like its increasing much more than the official CPI numbers.

PERSPECTIVE: Ronaldo vs Rooney.