After finishing our vacation in Utah, we spent Friday and Saturday at the Reed College reunion gathering – the college insists on calling it Reedfayre, drawing an allusion to the very popular Rennfayre as well as playing up the concept of inter-generational contact, so that alumni for whom the year is not proximate to a nice round multiple of five since graduation could still have a reason to attend. I confess that I do enjoy meeting up with Reedies from other years (over the past year, we have hosted several current students and recent alums who needed housing in DC), and I never tire of nostalgic wandering on the campus not to speak of enjoying the Oregon
outdoors. Still, for those such as me who have thousands of miles to travel, I am not particularly interested in coming when a year proximate to my own graduation is not featured (and besides, I get to come to campus for other activities such as Working Weekend. I hope and expect to be at the World Cup in Brazil when next year's reunions come around.
It was great meeting up with friends from the class of ‘73, the year I walked at graduation even though I identify more closely with the class of ‘72, which I was a freshman. (Our class photo is here). Having a chance to schmooze with Maurice Isserman, who led the SDS contingent on campus while I was the leader of the "liberal" activist faction, was particularly rewarding -- he teased me about my being more left than he is these days. Since I got back to DC, I have been slowly reading Fallen Giants, his massive history of mountaineering in the Himalaya.
