May 27, 2009

25 Years Out: Brown Still Delivers

Sarah Auerswald / Sarah's Blog / 25th Reunion, Brown, Brown Bear Mascot, Brown University, Providence, shot luge, UPS, Van Wickle Gates / 2 Comments

OK, so you’d be forgiven if you thought I was referring to UPS, but in fact I mean it about my Alma Mater. Brown University provided the venue and all the trappings for me to see friends from a Quarter Century ago, which is Just As Long Ago As It Sounds.

Brown served up heaping plates of Pomp and Circumstance, and Providence was in all its Springtime Glory, and I have the pictures to prove it. It always begins with the Van Wickle gates – and coincidentally, it also always ends with them, too. One of the coolest traditions at Brown is that these gates only open twice a year; once, during Freshman week, they open inwards to let in the newest class; then, on Commencement day, they open outward, so that the graduates can process out and down the hill. More on that later.This is the First Baptist Meeting House, which is where the graduates go to hear speeches from Valedictorians and University Presidents and all that. Very Traditional and Old. Wasn’t Rhode Island founded by a bunch of colonists who wanted religious freedom? Ask Wikipedia.The University crest. Hokie, but I like it.This is the Sciences Library, but we called it the Sci-Li. Everything at Brown had a nickname.Pretty afternoon light on a pretty part of the campus.The sea of chairs set up for parents and friends to wait and watch the ceremonies.I can assure you they didn’t have a jumbo-tron in 1984.A local delicacy: soft frozen lemonade. Do they have it everywhere Except LA?They do treat us Alumni well. We felt very welcome indeed, except for the fact that we were barred from reaching the internet through the on-campus Wi-Fi network. Sorry, ma’am, it’s for students only. Yes, I’m Still mad about it.

Ah, the spartan dorm room. All necessity and no frills. Except for the internet access.Providence is filled with quaint little houses like this. Check out the historical marker — these are all over!The apartment building I lived in my senior year. 65 Arnold Street, memorialized in song by my buddy Steve, but I’m losing brain cells so I can’t remember the words…This is the computer lab. Not especially photogenic, but I include it because, when I was in college (see previous reference to a LONG time ago), we didn’t have personal computers; laptops hadn’t been invented. So we walked ourselves down to the lab here and logged on to the MainFrame, where they still programmed it with those punch cards you might see in old movies, and typed our papers. They were basically glorified typewriters. And sometimes the MainFrame would malfunction and we would lose all the work we’d entered. And then, some other times, we would just tell our English professors that that was what had happened. And they’d believe us and give us extensions on our work. Because they didn’t have the first clue about computers.Here I am with the Brown Bear. Our mascot. Yes, UCLA grads, we’re Bruins, too.This, although it hardly needs clarifying, I’m sure, is a shot luge. Yes, they pour alcohol down the little ruts and it chills as it flows downward, and it ends up in someone’s mouth. Not mine.These guys with the pink faces are the Groove Barbers, an acapella group who sang to us lo those many years ago, and they can still belt ‘em out. It was a great show!By the way, my sophomore year I lived in the cool bay window room on the left at the top of the building. It had an amazing 10 ft-long walk-in closet. Awesome.I was prevented from accessing the internet on campus, As I’ve Mentioned, and I was only marginally successful in getting my fellow alums to tweet about the reunion with the hashtag #BrownReunion (although I did get a few people to trend with it — they were attending the 5th year reunion…), so in the end, high tech lost out to an old low-tech white board for meeting an old friend I haven’t seen in over 15 years.Finally, the Pomp began.Top Hat and Tails, people! We’re serious about our Pomp at Brown.As promised, More about the Procession out through the gates. The Alumni classes (those of us having reunions) march through the gates first, from eldest to youngest, and as we reach the end of the line of people, we spilt off and line both sides of the street so we can watch as the next classes walk by — and we applaud. Your hands hurt after a while — and then you keep clapping, because there are a LOT of people walking in this procession. Anyway, we stay lining the streets until all the graduates pass by (1100 ish of them), and then, as the last one passes, the alums file right back in and go down the hill after them. It’s not something can be well-described on paper, so forgive me for trying. When I was graduating, they described it as inverting a sock. But I don’t think that helps most people to visualize it. I have video of the inversion and I’ll attempt to post it for the next time. But here’s the parting shot — I took it walking backwards, so apologies for the quality:

The Van Wickle gates, opened out for the only time this year, to let the alums process through, and then the graduates of the class of 2009.