Why Reunions?

I was struck by Jo Amanti Piltz’s essay about the meaning, to her, of reunions. This was written following our 50th Reunion:

Reunion Scribe Jo Amanti Piltz…

Tis the season—for college applications, recommendations, and interviews.

Yesterday I met with a young woman who is eager to make Mount Holyoke her academic and social home for the next four years, and I was struck by how much she reminded me of all of us over fifty years ago. She is agonizing over grades, SAT scores, and the dread college essay. Do you remember that hoop? I do, and I feel a similar frisson as I struggle to write something meaningful now for this 50th reunion site.

That long-ago essay destroyed my Christmas vacation. Our topic was “Why do you want to attend Mount Holyoke?” I must have wept buckets of tears before admitting that after moving and changing schools endlessly as an army brat, I wanted to attend a college whose name alone would say something immediate about who I was. Time after time over the years, new acquaintances have greeted my background information with exactly the “Aaah” that I wanted at eighteen.

Certainly my colleagues, students, and friends have all known me as an advocate of Mount Holyoke. For years I’ve worn my keys on a MHC lanyard, driven a car with a MHC sticker on the window, and decorated my classroom with MHC posters. I truly hate selling, but I am never embarrassed by touting my college experience. In fact, I have clarified my own awareness of the value of four years at Mount Holyoke while encouraging others to attend. I borrow from our President David Truman, when I tell prospective students that three things make a great school: a great library, a great faculty, and a great student body. Now I add to my spiel the question: “and with which of those three things will you spend the most time?” With other students, your talented friends.”

At MHC, I lived in the library, and I loved learning from Peter Viereck, Mr. Leedy, Mr. Rox, Ben Reid, and Mr. Smith. Miss Regier’s organ concerts made the hotly-contested chapel requirement a pleasure. But the buildings and the faculty have changed, and even the concepts we learned are updated. Our fascinating and warm-hearted friends are the constant.

These are tough economic times, and a week with old friends must be considered within the context of other important priorities: food, shelter, family, and even the reunion gift to the alumnae fund. When our heads rule our hearts, women tend to put sensible items in first place and other’s desires and needs ahead of our own. Until our 30th reunion that was my own pattern. I missed our 35th but the 40th and 45th reunions strengthened my realization that memories of friends pale in comparison with time together in the present.

If you’ve never been back for a reunion or if you are questioning the need to attend our 50th, I hope that you will make a commitment now to the May 2010 weekend in South Hadley. The friends with whom we learned will be there. I consider this special reunion an investment in the future.

A reunion is not really self-indulgent. It is a necessity.

    Jo