Potpourri 16: The 10-Year College Reunion

The Muthafuckin' White Spot!!

Gordon "The Professional" Stokes and I were hangin' out on Saturday morning, and in front of going to events, we decided to check out the Spot during the daylight; you know what? You CAN enjoy the Spot without getting a Gusburger! What does this mean? Order "One Hell of a Mess", which is two eggs how you like, toast, sausage gravy, home fries, and the kitchen sink. Add OJ, and it's like $7. God Bless You, Charlottesville...

The People You DON'T Realize Are Comin'

Random folks at work asked me what surprised me the most about going back for Reunions; I'm telling you, hands down (well, maybe NOT hands-down; more on that later) it had to be the number of people I saw who didn't come back for the five-year reunion and therefore have been unseen by any of my friends for a solid ten years...but, who look exactly the same and absolutely blew me out of the water when I ran into them in Charlottesville.

Chief amongst these strangers had to be my old friend Esi Yarney, who was a marvelous woman to all that knew her back at school...like many of my New York City-based friends, they surface only rarely outside of their home domain and since she moved there after graduation, I had not heard a peep from her. So, imagine my shock when I eyeballed Esi for the first time in ten years...I know that I lost my shit when I saw her, because it was just fantastic to catch up. (Added bonus--Esi moved down to Silver Spring, so now, she's "hangin' out.") Esi's friend Michelle (who I had French with early on during the old days) also arrived, and while we weren't as close back at school, that doesn't matter--for a weekend, everyone is best friends and that made everything all the sweeter.

Esi and Michelle, chillin'

Peyton and Ronde Wreak Havoc

Going back for a ten-year college reunion is one thing--having two of the best NFL players at their position over the last ten years come to that same reunion is another thing altogether.

As some of you knew, I worked as an intern my fourth year at UVA in the Sports Promotions unit of the Athletic Department, where I worked with three other people, including Ashley Thompson, a truly nice woman who seemed to possess almost zero ego and was nearly the tallest woman I knew at school that didn't play for the hoops team. Well, one day, I was working early at a football game and while standing in the press box, I noticed a commotion building at the doorway. I walk over and who's standing there, but freakin' Peyton Manning, who at that point was in his first year in the NFL. I don't think I shook his hand, opting instead for the "whassup", when Ashley walks over and says "Hey, honey" and smooches him right there in front of everybody. As is typical with everything else in my life, I had to ask somebody else if the two were friends; the guy who answered was like "Bro, that's her BOYFRIEND."

Whoops.

Fast forward to the now--Peyton and Ashley have been married for a while, and shock of shocks, she brought her famous, Super Bowl-winning husband to my freakin' reunion, which caused innumerable problems for local bars, restaurants and events because all the locals were stunned to see freakin' Peyton (who is huge, by the way) all over Charlottesville. Dwarfed by this somewhat was the fact that Class of '97 grad Ronde Barber of the Tampa Bay Bucs was also at the reunion, but Tiki Barber was not. This led to one of the funniest stories at this reunion, where my friend Tina walked over to Ronde and thought that he was Tiki...talk about a mountain of apologies, as she spent the next few minutes digging out of a hole. (Hey, it could have happened to any of us...I think.)

Not Bringing Meg--Good Call

My girlfriend Meg and I did a little bit of talking about this before we ultimately decided that bringing her would be a bad idea; sure, you always want to show off your girlfriend, but in a case like this, Meg would have spent her entire weekend meeting people, 75% of whom she would never see again.

As such, it was much easier for me to run around and say hi to folks without having to spend time with each person introducing the lovely Margaret. It would have been fun to have her around to say hi to the few folks she has already met, but the bad outweighed the good here and post-event, I'm glad that this was the call made. Honestly, I was surprised at how many spouses made the trip for this thing; it's got to be tough as a spouse when you are spending the whole weekend meeting folks who had an influence on your partner's collegiate life; it's like a whirlwind tour of meeting the people behind all of the great stories of your life and then, bam, you're back in the car to head home. It's exhausting to meet people, and to meet, say, 50 of them in one weekend, wow...that's just a lot of work.

The Lawn...there's nothing like it

As much as I love "the people", man, you can't beat sitting out on The Lawn; the magic of it all is never lost on me, and I always spend at least some time sitting out on the grass or on the steps of the Rotunda soaking it all in for the hundredth time, or the first time, or whatever. We had good weather on this trip, although it was fairly muggy on Friday; still, at night, I did a lot of sitting on and around the Rotunda thinking back to the good ol' days, and no words can describe a shot of that Rotunda lit up at night. My pictures didn't do it perfect justice, but just from this one shot, you kind of get an idea of what I'm talking about, as the reunion organizers did their annual fireworks over the Rotunda display on Saturday night.

Nicknames

In college, I feel like if you never had at least a riff on your real name--not to mention an out-and-out "nickname", like Mad Dog, Tigs or Steak--you just didn't live...this may be more true for guys, but I knew a LOT of women who had nicknames, too...and, at a reunion, those things come back in a flash and damn, do I love 'em. I'm telling you, maybe the most fun you are going to have at one of these is to roll around, see a familiar face, and say "BIG LARRY!!" while giving a bear hug to a guy you knew so briefly that outsiders would question your sanity. I mean, I saw some women who I knew for like 20 minutes who I still talked to at this reunion for LONGER THAN I KNEW THEM AT UVA, but in the scheme of things, that doesn't matter--you're hangin' out, baby!

While my nickname doesn't inspire greatness per se--my nickname at school was Commish, which is funnier when you realize how many of my friends still call me that--it does give you an understanding on why college is so great. Seriously, I know people that will still tell the story that they didn't know my real name until a few years after I left college because they only ever called me Commish or "Bell." I had that same problem with a lot of my friends--I never used their God-given, government-approved name at school because when you're at school, it's almost uncool to call a person by their real name. I can't imagine calling my friend John Ayers by "John"; shit, he's Ayers, for chrissakes! Gordon? Well, he's "Stokesy", or "that little bitch", or "G-Money"...but, Gordon? Shit, I can't call him that!

(Seriously, during all of this, don't forget the basic facts here--if your ten-year reunion is coming up, for the love of crikey, go, go, GO!!!)

The "Oh Yeah, I _______ Her, Too" Feeling

Don't play games here--even for a guy like me, who didn't exactly run a river of women during my four years at UVA, even I was walking around at class-specific events during the weekend with this look on my face like "Oh yeah, I DID _______ that girl, too"...and, I could tell that other people were doing that as well.

Some of this was that bad feeling, like "Whoops...I did hook up with that guy Brent during that messed-up Chi Phi party second year"; some of it was "Oh, wow--I did tag that girl Chastity after that rave on the Downtown Mall during Finals week third year." But almost everyone had a story like that, and even though we are older, more mature adults, I'm telling you, everyone had a story like that. Many of them happened to folks post-graduation but still count because they happened with peeps you met at school...and, well, some have done better than others.

The Muthafuckin' Red Roof Inn

I'll tell you what--staying at the Red Roof was maybe the best planning decision of the weekend, because no less than 12 of the rooms were occupied by people that I knew, none more random than our friend Leslie Calihman, who was a dance favorite of Gordon and myself "back in the day." We discovered Sunday morning that she was staying in the room across the hall from us with her newborn and another friend of our from the old days; in the room to our left was Sarah Baird (born Dobson), a girl I dated back in the day, who was staying there with her husband and her newborn; two floors up were three rooms of other scattered friends...this was just comedy. And, you can't beat the location or the free hotel parking, so as a jump point, the Red Roof did the work.

(Are the rooms sexy? No. Was there a hot continental breakfast in the hotel lobby? Nope. Did the towels scream "ghetto-ized hand-me-down"?? Abso-fucking-lutely. But, for $100 a night (high for RR standards) and sitting three minutes from Littlejohn's, it's sold, baby!)

Make No Mistake--I'm 32 Years Old

This is not to imply that 32 is old; hardly is this the case, as much as my contemporaries enjoy making light of the fact that they feel old watching life pass them by.

No, this is to imply that 32 is 11 years older than 21, which was the age of many of the kids at the bars I visited or walked by during the weekend while in Charlottesville, and that means I'm approaching an age where I really AM the spooky old guy who is hangin' out at the college bar. This epiphany of sorts leveled me like a sledgehammer Friday night while at Bohemian Biker Bar, the establishment that opened up next to the Biltmore (aka The Fratmore) some time after I left school. First off, if any of the "adults" at the Biker Bar were even 21, I would be shocked, but as I stood there outside looking around, I realized that I can't frequent bars where 19-year-olds regularly meet that night's hook-up; I really AM too old for that.

And, my man Dave Lee ("The Financier" from our trip to Iceland a couple of months ago) said it best after he and our other classmates went dancing on Saturday night--you really could feel your knees get older as we danced outside to some of the worst music ever played at an event (oh, Enferno, I missed you so); man, going full tilt for a few hours is rough stuff for me anymore...damn!

Time is Beautiful...Time is Rough

Let's face it--I'm a bigger guy than I was ten years ago. (Of course, I was a rail in college, so that came easily for me.) I like to think that I carry the weight well, but in some ways, it's a big change from how I looked in "the old days", and with my goatee and bald look, a lot of folks I saw at Reunions had to do a double take before they realized that it was me, you know?

Time is funny like that--I saw a lot of folks over the reunion weekend that were like me in that regard, peeps who have gone through some fairly drastic physical changes over the last ten years, some good, some not as good. A dreadful hairstyle reversed for the better here, a paunch so large it hurt me to see these formerly stick-thin folks there. But, for all of of those who were physically affected by time, I saw a lot of people who looked literally not a hair different from how they appeared ten years ago. Now, having a small percentage of people like that is not that strange...but, really, like a third of the people I saw looked like they had just taken their last final just minutes ago. Time can be so beautiful if you can just find a way to manipulate it!

The other big surprise with this came not in the looks department, but in the ego department. You know that term "check your ego at the door"? I was shocked that literally not a single person dropped the "ahem, I went out and made $300,000 every year" routine or the "yeah, I've got three apartments in two cities" or the "yeah, I went out and got really famous" act...everyone seemed genuinely excited to just be at the damned thing, which was beautiful for folks like me, who had an experience with UVA that was oftentimes tied to active class/strata differentiation and, well, out-and-out I'm better-than-you-isms. For a magical three-day stretch, everybody was everybody and that worked very well for me.

Strangely...no random hook-up stories

Now, this may have happened to people (note the great Matt Muller's insight two years ago--that "already been tapped ass"), but I was not privy to any details of random people hookin' it up like they did back at the five-year reunion, where many more people made very questionable decisions over the course of a long weekend. This time around, the air was not so much around that random "Hey, I've got a room back at the Red Roof...you like hangin' out?" feeling, but more of a "Hey, I've got a kid now" or "Hey, I've got a hot-and-heavy girlfriend now" or "Hey, I'm single as hell, but I'm just here to hang out for the weekend."

I was surprised at this; I thought for sure we'd have at least a couple of badass stories around this, but it just never happened, you know? (If you DO know, hey, call me, alright!)

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, I'm glad I went down. It was kind of a no-brainer for me, since I'm a sucker for seeing my friends all in one place, but also because I was on the planning committee, even though I intentionally limited my involvement after throwing myself off a cliff to help out with the five-year reunion.

The part that jazzed me the most? All of it, truly...I caught up with all of my old friends, enjoyed some decent food, got my UVA fix, talked shit with those who needed to be shit-talked, had discussions about a few important things, kissed a number of babies new to my friends over the last year or two, sat in a rocking chair on the Lawn, caught an a cappella show, hobnobbed, danced, napped...I even had a little bacon on Sunday morning before skipping town. So many great people who I don't see regularly that I can't even remember them all...Carolina Diaz-Bonilla. Betsy Mettler. Heather Spader. Big Larry. Chris Hawkins. Angie Spooner. Demetria! Jenn Larkin...Nancy Nelson. Leslie...Grimley. Martinez! Marci! Suhrid and Shilpa! Ahh, I am totally forgetting everyone, but you get the point, peeps were EVERYWHERE that weekend!

Only four years and 50 weeks until the 15-year. It won't be as strong as this one, but hopefully it will provide some of the special memories that surfaced this go-round. Ahh...

For my personal photo album, click here. For hundreds of other photos from the reunion, click here and enter Reunions07 as the "password."

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

Hangin' out with Mark "Scags" Vagnetti: Opening Weekend
Two words--chocolate fondue machine: Opening Weekend
Chillin' with "The Crew": Opening Weekend
Any conversation that mentioned "townies": Opening Weekend
Sun dresses: Opening Weekend

bellview--i love to nibble

Potpourri 16--The 10-Year College Reunion