It is so. much. fun.

I attended a small college, which I will nobly attempt to keep anonymous, but odds are good that I'll spill the beans within the month.  Much of my life and identity are still tied to this place.  Today, though, I experienced seeing Reunion unfold in front of me, in a totally different way than when I attended Josh's five-year party with him last year.

For the afternoon, I volunteered at the check-in table for the Class of 1961's 50th Reunion.  My job was to hand out welcome packets, and it was quiet for an hour or two.  But then alumni starting coming in, people whose freshman year of college was 1957, and the stories came out in full force, covering the trip back to Minnesota, their families, and of course, their college days.  (How we managed to do this efficiently during the dance of ticket and information exchange, I'm not sure.  Maybe I'm not welcomed back next year!) 

One trio of women confessed that, along with five more of their closest pals, they had left their husbands at home for the weekend to (for lack of a better phrase) party with their best friends.  Later, they planned to go over to the Green Mill, a nearby restaurant that they say used to be a much seedier bar, to revisit their old stomping grounds.  They used to go there regularly to sing ("not dirty songs, just songs!" one clarified), and one woman, well, did end up dancing on the bar one night.

That was a big contrast to my conversation with another alumna a few minutes later.  She had flown in from the west coast, walked into the check-in area alone, and admitted that she had little sense of who would be attending and that she had actually lost touch with most of her classmates.  I wondered for a second: would I have the guts to fly halfway across the country to show up at my alma mater, 50 years after I received my diploma, without the security blanket of my closest friends?  But extrapolating the answer to that question isn't the point of this blog entry.  The bottom line is that it was so cool to watch her head back into the sitting room and be surrounded right away by people who recognized her face and knew her name before she prompted them.

By the end of the afternoon, I was downright enthusiastic about my reunion, which starts tomorrow night.  It would've been hard not to be, after hearing the Class of 1961 scream and shriek and seeing them hug each other.  I mentioned to two women that my own five-year reunion was this weekend, too, and that being around their classmates had really made me excited.  There was a tiny pause and then both women burst out laughing. 

"Five?  Five?!" one said. 

"Gosh, we're 10 times that!" said the other.

Later, a member of the girls' weekend crew came back to the table to ask another question.  As she was leaving, she looked at me and said:

"Don't ever be scared to be my age, because it is so. much. fun."