Home Sweet Hamilton - Can You Go Home Again?

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This weekend, I am at one of my favorite places on earth - my alma mater, Hamilton College. It's finally my five year reunion time - I can't believe it's here already. I was both dreading and looking forward to the four hour drive earlier today. Since my pinched nerve has been acting up this week, four hours is a LONG time to spend in the car, especially without cruise control. But it's also a very pretty drive and as I headed up the thruway, past Albany, I started to get that feeling of coming home again. I do love this place, but can you really come home again?

To give a little background, my college search began in earnest my senior year of high school. One day, in the mail, I got a brochure for Williams College. It "spoke" to me, as my sister would say, and I decided, based on the brochure, that Williams was the college for me. My mom encouraged me to actually visit the school, and do an interview there. I agreed and made the appointment. She also mentioned to me a school that she had read about in a magazine article, Hamilton College. She suggested that we go to Hamilton first, "just to see it," and then on to Williams for the interview. I agreed to that too and off we went. The four hour drive to the "Hill," as it's known by its inhabitants, was lovely (as it was today) and full of "vistas," which my mom and I jokingly saw as a positive sign.

We arrived in the parking lot of admissions, and I turned to her and said "This is it." She said, yes, this is admissions. And I said "No, I mean, this is the school I'm going to." I just fell in love with this place immediately and never looked back. It was the only school I applied to, I got in early decision and off I went. I loved every minute here, even the bad ones. So much of my growing up happened here - my first love and my first heartache, small and big disappointments and victories, and finding the best friends that I will ever have. I feel so lucky and always look at Hamilton with a great deal of nostalgia. And coming here always feels like coming home for me.

But I was nervous about this trip - I haven't seen so many of these people since graduation, and I didn't know how things would go. Time diminishes a lot of memories, and so it can be a shocking reality to see a familiar face and remember that you didn't really know that person, or have anything in common with them. But since they're your classmate, what's the etiquette? Do you say hello anyway? Pretend not to know them as you would have in college? It's tough to say.

But I was feeling very peaceful by the end of my drive. A hot mist seemed to linger over the whole state today because of the warm blanket of humidity we've been living with. It gave a mysterious and soft feeling to the view from my air-conditioned car though, so that the landscape looked more like a painting than reality. It was too bad that I couldn't spend more time just gazing out the window at the landscape or taking photos of the drive - which reminded me of a project I planned when I first arrived here. When exploring some of the surrounding areas before I had a car on campus, I saw a number of farms with silos. I'm sure that's not too novel for anyone from a rural farm area, but for me, I saw a great deal of photographic potential. I promised myself that I would take the time to do a series of silo pictures before I graduated, and I only realized today that I never did that. It's funny what dreams fall to the wayside as you're busy living the rest of your life. But I can still do it - I just have to plan another trip up here for that very purpose.

At any rate, as I mentioned, I was feeling peaceful when I arrived on campus. The Hill seemed bigger than I remembered and I was afraid that my little car would fall right off the side! The college looked mostly the same as I approached - some new signs, and an alarming set of flashing lights to guard the crosswalk. I managed to find parking near the registration building and headed inside. There, I had my first alumni encounter, when you see people that you knew in school but you weren't friendly with and everyone's first reaction is to say hi like long lost friends, until it occurs to you that you don't even know each other's names. So you just brush off the hello like it's nothing. "The reunion begins," I thought.

I dreaded my housing assignment, because there had been rumors that they were putting the class of '02 in the notorious Bundy dorm. Bundy is generally a sophomore student dorm and is the worst housing on campus, hands down. It's ten minutes down the Hill by foot - resulting in the "Bundy Butt" for those who live there and my friends and I ended up in that hole junior year by some fluke. It was the worst year we had housing-wise, in no small part because of the hooligans that lived down the hall from us who conspired to drive us slowly insane. It worked. So I wasn't thrilled to be back in there. But by some miracle, we ended up in Dunham, a dorm I had yet to live in. I rejoiced inside..that is, until I got here.

I must admit, my first thought was that I have been seriously spoiled by my work travel. Not that I need any sort of four star accommodations, but I had forgotten how lonely and small a bare bones dorm room can be. And when we were college students, we brought pictures and posters and furniture and our lives into these rooms - hotel rooms are given a personality that you live with, but you give your dorm room your personality. Coming back here to a dorm room that would only be mine for a day or two is extremely strange, but I am glad that we're staying on campus. There's nothing like being back in these horrible dorms to start the reminiscing about college on the right foot. And as my friends like to say, what would we talk about if we couldn't complain?

The room is SMALL with a desk and chair and a single bed - that's right, a single, not even a twin. The dresser in my room rocks back and forth when you open the drawers, and my fan is the only source of circulation. Did I mention that you could boil water in this building, it's so hot in here? But we all remembered it not being so bad when we were students here - it's amazing what you will live with when you just don't know any better. I don't want you to think I'm complaining though - I remember these dorms fondly, because some of the crazy, small and cramped living conditions we dealt with were what brought us closer together. And we weathered this stuff together and became survivors of these dorms. It's silly, but it bonds us.

Once everyone arrived, around ten, we went on the hunt for some food and managed to find one of our old haunts - Tony's Pizza. I vascillated between Tony's and Roma's when I was a student, alternately loving one style of pizza, then the other. Tony's has thick doughy pizza with lots of cheese and lots of grease. Roma's, which has since closed, had giant slices of thinner pizza - it was delicious. But tonight, Tony's did not disappoint. For three-fifty, I got a lemonade and a thick piece of cheese pizza. It was so greasy, I had to take the cheese off just to eat it. Everyone else's dinners were not any better - one of my friends had pasta "hats" which were actually bowties, and they had been cooked so that they stuck together like glue. Some pieces were actually still crunchy! The décor was also as lovely as I remembered - plastic booth tables, dirty walls, drugstore kitchen decorations. It did add a certain charm to the place, and again reminded us of where our standards were as poor college students. Tony's was gourmet pizza to me in those days, and I do have a certain yearning for the days when I didn't know any better. Although right now, listening to the drunk former frat guys in the hall making noise and damaging things, I realize that there are some things I certainly DON'T miss.

After catching up some more, we decided to check out the Little Pub, scene of many a night out during our college days. Its moniker comes not from its size, but because of it's benefactor, Mr. Little, a Hamilton alum. The pub was quieter than I expected, but looked just the same. Even the ladies room still had all of the wall carvings from drunk girls commemorating their evenings and maligning each other's characters. We sat outside and laughed and reminisced and even saw a few old friends. Even though we were tired, being back on campus invigorated us and we had a really nice night.

Back in our new digs, we also saw two of the guys who had lived downstairs from us freshmen year, and they were spending the weekend in the same dorm with us. It was almost like old times - eerie, but nice. I'm wondering what the rest of the weekend will bring. I feel as though we've all done a lot of growing up, and it's interesting to weave who we are now with who we used to be for a weekend. But I think we will enjoy it.

Tomorrow, it's off to get a massage - yes, another male masseuse for me! And then we've got lots of campus activities, and the semi-formal class dinner. Woo hoo!

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Photos

Room 204 in Dunham - fancy, huh?
As you can see, I brought my own sheets and towels!