To continue Saturday: after lunch I wandered around campus a bit, saw Mason, for example, took some pictures, and eventually ended up at Little Bridges for the Glee Club concert, which included a nice selection of music from many centuries. It ended with the “college songs” — co-sung by old choir/Glee-Club members who joined the current GC on-stage. Zhanna, Ben, and Ashley sat next to me upstairs. Outside it was hot … sunburn weather, really … and we returned to the tents where breakfast and lunch had been, and we chatted for hours until, finally, Nate and I wandered through Thatcher (it was all about the bathroom and seeing the practice rooms — there was a young woman playing piano in one basement chamber, but we did not interrupt her), out of Thatcher, toward Sumner, and toward The Wash for free alumni-brewed beer. Nate went first to the ‘Borg so I went on my own and, after getting a plate of tacos & nachos, got in line for beer, where I got a very tasty amber from a guy wearing a N.E. Patriots cap.
I eventually found other classmates but I also saw Professor Sheirich, standing with Don Zenger, and I joined them, Sheirich remembered me, and Prof. Zenger, now also retired, seemed not quite all there or at least exhausted. We talked for a long time and I remembered that even though he was not “recommended” when it came to courses during my time there (and he was near retirement at that point), I always enjoyed talking with him. He’s still working on a Schnitzler book, but it’s one that, if he gets it done soon, would be interesting because it deals with fascinating copyright matters from the ’20s that have analogues today (dealing with shifting media).
I joined a circle of classmates on the grass. Avery Sheffield had arrived by that point but stood apart. Alison Rosen showed up and I joined Ben in talking with her. I vaguely remember her from Pomona but I knew that I remembered her because I came across her MySpace profile a long while ago when looking for Pomona people from my year.
And eventually we were off to dinner, back at Raines, and in the gym there is no AC … so we were roasting. No “Lost” waiter, though, Saturday evening. The current Men’s Blue And White sang to us and Ken and John joined them for a song or two. They weren’t bad, the new guys, but they look so young and they all have big, poofy hair. Styles change.
A social was held over at “Dom’s” (different part, though) and I joined others there for a while. The music was loud, typical club fare. Eventually Nate and I made a break for it. I must admit that my mood was a bit on the foul side at that point. We walked to the library — I’d been meaning to see it — an then through the CMC campus.
Eventually we returned to the social, and then, after things completely died down, we got ourselves back to the hotel. Nate and I took Clark with us (and drove his rental car), and then went down from our room (742) to 625, Party Central ™.
Much wine, beer, and vodka, and several stories I’m not allowed to repeat later, we hit the sack. At about 4:30 in the morning.
I woke up early enough for the Champagne Brunch (for which I’d paid) but I’d had only a few hours of sleep, so instead returned to bed, and woke up later once Nate had left. I showered, dressed, and packed. Clark got up and left. I went to the main lounge and typed, and waited for Nate to return. He did make it to the brunch, but others did not, and soon he returned with Leena;they decided to put stuff in her car. I took a picture of a flower, found Justina, and talked to her until the other two returned. We checked out of the hotel, though it took some work due to the friendliness but slight incompetence of Anna and Sheila at the front counter.
Nate and I went with Justina to campus; Leena would join us later but her idea of “just a minute” doesn’t match ours, which is to say, that of normal people. We went to the “coop” (inappropriate term these days, since it’s all been renamed) and got food, since most of us hadn’t eaten. I got fries and a coop-shake … it had been watered down, we felt. A thinner, low-fat, version of the original, but the fries were good and the shake was tasty.
Dean Quinley, who is retiring, showed up, and we chatted with her a few minutes, but soon got our own table and just talked amongst ourselves (Clark joined us, as did Kristin, and then Aditya as well as Mitch and his wife. Leena was last). The one person I wanted to see and who was there but whom I missed was Rhoda over in Study Abroad.
Peter was coming to get me and Nate, so Nate, Leena and I left — she was walking us out and also going, soon, I suspect, back to L.A. After a bathroom break in the Science Library — ah, the scary details, dear reader! — in what was my only reason for going in there (that library) this trip we got in the rented mini-van and headed for the mountains, up toward Baldy, and most of the way there we pulled over at a picnic and rest stop, chatted, ate a bit (I had an apple, courtesy of Peter), and played with Peter’s adorable daughter, who liked picking up and giving me acorns and twigs.
Back down the mountain we went, through Upland, and after a stop at a gas station to fill up the empty tank, I was dropped off at the Ontario airport and I said my good-byes.
Tammy at the United counter got me on stand-by for an upcoming flight to LAX, and I made it. I ended up in the first row (actually row 2) next to Chris, a Special Forces officer in the Marines, who was/is switching branches to the Coast Guard. Better from the coincidence side — though the type of thing that interests Nate not one bit — is that Chris played basketball two years at Boise State before joining the Service and so knew Boise, etc. It was a fascinating conversation because we so unalike that we had nothing to talk about … yet we did.
He seemed like a good guy.
I got to LAX, got an iced coffee at Starbucks so I’d have some quarters, and called Nate, who didn’t expect to hear from me again, and he and the Leth family were just checking in the rented vehicle. Not an hour later I met Nate at his gate (or rather, he met me at his gate), and we got food (McDonald’s), chatted, went back to the gate, and chatted some more before he got on his plane to Seattle.
