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Duke Reunion Weekend brought back many memories. Parts of campus were virtually unrecognizable; most alumni were virtually unchanged. I found nostalgia in unexpected places, like the smell of the store beneath the East Campus dining hall and the goofy nicknames of the freeways. Overall, it was great to see a bunch of people I should try to see more often. Count us in for 2012.

Here’s the first batch of photo highlights.

One of the virtually unrecognizable parts of campus I mentioned.

Ben took a lot of these photos, and deserves your warm applause.

Chino was the reunion’s most sought-after alum. People were grabbing him and poking him and shoving cameras in his face all weekend.

Here he and Pete Gailliot argue over Grossman’s nametag. A memento, I guess.

On the right is the new chapel (I think), which is not at all impressive by comparison.

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After a lively weekend and a trying trip home, I’m too tired to post all the photos tonight. But not as tired as Chapman was Saturday afternoon.

To be continued…

The Wright Brothers were fucking genius.

Ellen and I are now heading north on I-85 near the North Carolina-Virginia border. We’re driving through a driving rain in an amenity-free Corolla. The various weather reports we’ve watched, heard or read have mentioned flooding and blizzards and gale force winds. We’re listening to a local DJ’s take on the Imus firing.

This was not the plan.

Three-hundred flights into New York have already been canceled, but Continental has not yet ruled on ours. To me, this is poor customer service. Ellen needs to get home for work tomorrow, and I’d like to get home for The Sopranos tonight. When I called Continental, I was told they don’t want to cancel any flights and treated to a script about their dedication to safety. It’s a top priority, I was assured. Not in the mood for non-sequiturs, I hung up. I realized their real plan was to get us to the airport and never let us leave. So we changed the rental car drop-off location to Newark Airport, picked up a few stale pastries from Kroger and hit the long road home.

I’m trying to stay positive, but failing. It’s hard, especially when I remember the Wright Brothers invented airplanes simply to avoid this kind of journey.

I’ll post the weekend’s photo highlights tomorrow. They are fantastic.

Chinoo “Chino” Sahoo.

Kevin Pell. The RV’s attendance is questionable.

Joe Diaz.

It’s reunion time. Ellen’s, not mine. Since she’s bringing me back to Duke as her guest, I’ve decided to break my strict no-guest-writers commandment.

When I said I wanted to post her “senior column” from 2002, she balked. “My 9/11 column is much better.” That may be. But her immediate take on the defining and most depressing moment of our generation does not fit well with my giddy reunion theme. Or with this picture of good friends having good times:

(That’s me in the middle, forty pounds heavier. On the right is a young Patrick Dempsey.)

With that, I’ll turn things over to Ellen, circa April 2002.

CLASS OF 2002 WILL REMEMBER THE OLD DUKE
By Ellen Mielke

I’m not quite certain what to make of this whole graduation thing. Most people I know dread the event; after all, it’s the culmination of four years that are supposed to make up the best of your life. As I’ve always understood it, no one is supposed to want to graduate.

Believe me, I don’t. I’ve never been one for goodbyes, and frankly, I think there’s a good part of me that, like my fellow seniors, is currently choosing to ignore the looming end to our college days. It makes sense–there’s really no point in treating each day as if it were our last, even if it is.

But I think there’s more to it than that. I know a number of seniors who lately have begun declaring, “I’m so glad I’m getting out of here,” and for a while it surprised me. After all, that’s not how graduation is supposed to be, and the real world is the enemy, not the goal. Still, if you listen carefully, you can almost hear the quiet murmuring of seniors admitting, “I’m getting out of here before it’s too late.”

That’s not to say Duke isn’t still going to be a great place to spend future years, or that I think transferring elsewhere will become the next trend. But the Class of 2002 has had to face the reality that the Duke of our freshman year, the Duke we first fell in love with, isn’t going to be here after we leave.

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