Reflections on my 50th Class Reunion

I never imagined when I was a student at Cornell College that I would be back  50 years later for a reunion.  That seemed beyond comprehension.  Yet, I was at Cornell last weekend at Homecoming 2017 and those of us from the Class of 1967 were honored all weekend. As a college freshman I could not imagine being who I am now….a 72 year old woman.  I struggled some to remember who I might have been in 1963.  It goes both ways…

On the long drive home from Iowa to North Carolina, I thought about the pros and cons of class reunions.  I also thought about my difficulties adapting to this small liberal arts college on a hilltop in the middle of the corn fields of Iowa when I had grown up in big cities in South America.  The gap in cultures was hard to bridge and I often felt like a misfit on the Cornell campus.( I went to Cornell to be near my Cedar Rapids relatives when my family lived abroad.)  I considered why I would want to go back. With persuasion from my roommate Terrie, an enthusiastic alumna, and the lure of visiting my cousin Julie in Cedar Rapids, along with my desire to show Art where I had spent my college years before we met and married, I decided to go.

Terrie, an enthusiastic alumna and my college roommate

Showing Art "The Hilltop" campus

There is a sense of freedom and total acceptance interacting with classmates you haven’t seen in 50 years.  Gone are the labels of “most popular”, “best looking”, nerdiest”, “super jock”, “brainiest”, and all those other names we affixed to peers and worried about when we were in our teens and early twenties.  Gone are the insecurities that come from youth and the preoccupation of “fitting in”,  and being popular.  It’s all easy after 50 years except for the strain of pretending ,when you fail to recognize someone you should have known.  There is a lot of peering down at name tags hoping you can read a name to jar a memory without succumbing to grabbing reading glasses!  There is much looking intently into people’s faces to catch some recognition ….shape of the face without the wrinkles … the gray hair, and people’s figures, most of which have become heavier and some thinner and more frail. There is surprise at seeing friends you remember struggling to get up stairs, and noticing many wearing hearing aids (something I am tuned into now that Art wears them). 

Preparing for dinner at the Elmcrest Country Club

I began to relax when I realized that 50 years is an equalizer for us all.  Just attending reunion weekend puts everyone on the same plane.  All the barriers we held up for ourselves and our peers in our youth are gone.

Having thought about the positives I admittedly am uncomfortable when so much focus is on our past lives.  That is when I am reminded of my own mortality. It brings to mind the question I don’t think too much about - ”how much longer will I be alive?”  But that is inevitable and a reflection of me as I tend to live my days in the present and future.

Most of us from the Class of 1967 attended a Memorial Service in Allee Chapel on Sunday morning in remembrance of those who had passed away.  We shared stories and reflections of classmates we had not thought of for a long time who had passed away too young.

“This will probably be my last time on the Hilltop,” I overheard someone in my class say.

“I probably won’t be back,” said another.  “Somehow a 55th doesn’t have the same importance as the 50th,” someone else said.  I silently agreed as I noticed that our class were the “stars” of the Homecoming Weekend.

Purple and White wrist corsages for all the women in the Class of 1967

Speeches at a 50th reunion, scrutinize historical, scientific and cultural changes of the last 50 years.  Welcome speeches include reference to all we lived through from the Civil Rights movementt to the war in Vietnam, the death of President Kennedy, the invention of the Internet and computers, the Cold War and Soviet dominance to the age of terrorism.  I was reminded of a 100th birthday party I had been to some years ago where the woman celebrating her one-hundredth birthday made an articulate speech enumerating all the changes she had lived through in 100 years. I was awed by her recollection of so many decades.

I came away feeling a commonality with classmates - all of us who had survived 50 years and were back on the Hilltop for the same purpose…celebrating our having reached this milestone. Personally I was reminded of my mother and father who had met at Cornell, graduated in the class of 1941. While browsing in the college library I noticed a new,  wall plaque listing all students inducted into Phi Beta Kappa since it began.  There was Richard Salda Sampson, my father, under the Class of 1940 - a validation that he really was here.  Reuniting with my cousin Julie in Cedar Rapids where we stayed for the weekend, reminded me of the love I have for my Iowa relatives  which began during my years at Cornell 50 years ago.  They were close by when my own family was far away.  I now realize how they have enriched my life in the last 50 years.  

Phi Beta Kappas 1941

Relaxing at my cousin Julie's home in Cedar Rapids