Reunion

"How do I say goodbye to what we had?
The good times that made us laugh,
outweigh the bad.
I thought we'd get to see forever,
but forever's gone away.
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

I don't know where this road is going to lead.
All I know is where we've been, and what we've been through.
If we get to see tomorrow, I hope it's worth all the wait.
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

And I'll take with me the memories
to be my sunshine after the rain.
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.
                                            Jason Mraz

         Nothing says "yesterday" quite the way that a class reunion does; more, especially a fifty-fifth class of '59 college reunion.
         Your scribe spent a scant one-and-a-half years at Willamette University, across the street from the state capitol grounds in Salem. 
         Fresh from high school, and flexing wings of independence for the first-ever time, old W.U. proved  to be this guy's Neverland State College.    Everywhere there were exciting diversions;  fraternities, the Old Mill Stream, evening serenades, touch football on the green, the Elsinore Theatre, the A&W drive-in, and of course, a Certain Lady.  Class assignments had to compete for attention with A): all the above.   All too often,  A)  prevailed. 
         This Certain Lady became an almost all-consuming object of my attention and of course, affection.  "My name is Ann Rees", she averred to our English Comp. prof on the first day of class; an instructor who turned out to be a more effective sedative than melatonin.  But she said it in such an elegantly demure fashion, that she had me locked-in, from the first time I beheld her countenance.  Suffice to say, Romance was not the college major my... financiers had in mind.
         The handwriting on the wall of academic achievement should have been evident following my first (but hardly last) collegiate prank.  The above-mentioned prof had a bust of a Neanderthal man positioned directly in front of his lectern.  On the second day of class, your scribe placed a freshly-lit cigarette between the lips of the ancient one.  Good for at least a modest guffaw; or so went the expectation.  "Murco" entered the classroom.  He immediately spotted the burning cigarette, grabbed it, extinguished it, and summarily tossed it out the window; all performed without comment, or the slightest reaction; as if he were dispassionately flicking away a fly.   (As an aside:For every last lecture, his variety of vocal inflections were a perfect 1:1  match for his facial expressions.) I digress.  As the demon weed left his fingers, one could hear the sound of air escaping from someone's balloon.
          Somehow, "M" must have deduced the identity of the culprit.  Following that fiasco,  no matter how sparkling the syntax, nor finely-tuned the footnotes, every piece of written work submitted was returned with a grade of "C".  This ploy was not the portal one should have chosen to access the honor roll, or even scholastic respectability.  But then, there was always this Serene Charmer to keep one concentrating on more pleasant pursuits. 
         For times without her, there were always fraternity brothers and other classmates.  Almost 400 of us were enrolled for our freshman year; the largest ever at the school.  Attrition of one kind or another reduced that number to 128 graduating seniors. Because of the semi-cloistered nature of our community, virtually everyone on campus had at least a nodding familiarity with everyone else.  A word of explanation about that "cloister":

       The university, founded in 1842 by Jason Lee, a Methodist minister, had several  "quaint regulations" imposed on its students.  To mention but a few, ~students of opposite sexes could not share the same blanket, even while sitting in a park. ~Folded newspaper was madataory on a boy's lap before a girl could alight atop.  ~The seating plan for the first football game of the year required male and female students to sit on opposite sides of a rope; extending from top row to bottom on the stadium bleachers.  This scheme was designed to heighten the rah-rah level in the cheering section.  ~Co-eds were allowed to wear jeans or pedal-pushers only in their dorm rooms on Saturday mornings.  ~Attendance at weekly chapel was obligatory: six un-excused absences per semester placed the guilty party on social probation.  ~11:00 pm on week nights was mandatory campus-wide lights-out.   ~All freshman were required to wear 'beanies" when walking about the campus. ~ Alcohol?  Surely you jest! Less than half the aforementioned regulations was ever taken seriously.
        Unbeknownst to this writer, several life-long friendships were being forged during those halcyon days.  My spring semester roomie remains in constant touch, and we make it a point to get together at least once a year to reminisce, talk baseball and politics.  Several others exchange notes and phone calls.  The tiny blip that a year and a half creates on a time-line of over eight decades doesn't seem to matter.  What does matter is that the blip is there. 
            As I gazed around the hotel dining room where we gathered on that mid-September evening, three thoughts became prominent.  The first was that it was startling to see all that silver hair on heads which were once covered by cardinal and gold beanies; almost yesterday, in fact. 
                   Second:  Though my tenure at Willamette was relatively brief,  classmates recalled, with smiles, many occasions and episodes in which our paths crossed.  This prompts a disclaimer:  There is no truth to the rumor that this writer was part of a conspiracy to "lift" the cheer king's VW Beetle, and deposit it during the night on the main floor of the administration building. 
                     Finally, it's abundantly clear that our class has graduated again; to the extent that we no longer feel obliged to assume airs or pretense.  There is, after all, nothing left to prove.  Every last one of us appears downright comfortable in his own skin; wrinkled, as it may be. 
                    Our class president gave us a parting charge:  "Unless you're in heaven, be there for fifty-seven."  As we bade our fond farewells, we picked up our celebratory wine glasses.  Had he but known, the Rev. Mr. Lee would have done a 180 in his grave.  See you guys in two years!
              

"

"Bright college days, o' carefree

days gone by;

to thee we sing with our glasses

raised on high.

As we now go our

sordid, separate ways,

We will ne'er forget thee -

thou golden college days."

~Tom Lehrer~