It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since leaving college, which means fourteen since we started, but so it is, and so it was time for our tenth class reunion. I took two days off work and headed to New York City to carpool up to Amherst together. I got into New York early Thursday morning and spent the day wandering Manhattan and Brooklyn after dropping my luggage off at George’s office. I made my first stop at MoMA, and enjoyed the too-small Helvetica exhibition as well as Barry Frydlender’s photos and the Dan Perjovschi wall.
I made my first visit to the International Center for Photography next, to see the excellent Stephen Shore exhibition. Lots of great, simple photographs of the sort of things you wouldn’t necessarily pay attention to: old billboards, plates of food, parking lots. Also included were some more recent works in the form of iPhoto books of photographs, which was a first in a museum setting that I could remember.
I went on a photobooth hunt for the rest of the afternoon, to Victoria’s Secret (gone), Daffy’s clothing store (seasonal, gone), and then out to Brooklyn to Bubby’s in DUMBO (very nice booth) and the Bushwick Country Club (also nice). We had a tasty dinner at Vamos! near Stuy Town, and after glancing through my road trip photo album and marveling at the thought that it was exactly ten years ago this week that we headed off into the South, we called it a night. [Photos of the day in New York].
George had to spend Friday at work, so I had another day in the city, and since I hadn’t really counted on having Friday free, I figured the smart thing to do would be to do my 17-mile run, so I didn’t have to worry about it during the reunion weekend. I rode the bus to work with George, and got off at 72nd, cutting over to the park at the Inventor’s Gate entrance. I had measured my route, using the equal parts life-saving and frustrating MapMyRun.com, and figured I needed to go a little short of three times around the main loop to get to 17 miles. I started off at 9:00 am, which was a little too late to avoid the heat, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Two hours and forty minutes later, I was finished, both literally and figuratively. I limped down to the Whole Foods at the Time Warner Center and pulled out my sweaty five dollar bills to buy my $7 (!) Jamba Juice, and then returned to the park, where I ended up lying on the grass for two hours. Very pleasant indeed. I stopped in the Apple Store and then caught the train back to George’s place. I met him later on that afternoon at the car rental place, and we took off for Amherst…via First Avenue, because the FDR was a mess. We made it to Amherst a minute before 10pm, and I was able to check in and get the keys to my dorm room before we headed up to Marsh House to see everyone else from our class who had already arrived. The Antonio’s, while plentiful, was cold and a little unsatisfying, so after a slice, we headed into town for the real deal. My punch card gave us a free slice, and we relished the real reason we headed back to Amherst: the pizza. We hung out a little longer at the get-together, and I chatted with a bunch of old friends, many of whom I hadn’t seen since the previous reunion five years before. 
The next day was one of those idyllic Pioneer Valley weekend days, though I have to say, it was a little on the hot and muggy side, after a year in Southern California. I got up early – the plastic-covered extra-long mattress was not so comfortable – and visited the Archives and Special Collections for the free breakfast and a chat with the folks there. I attended the dedication of the new statue of Robert Frost overlooking Memorial Hill, and then spent the rest of the day running into friends and hanging out. We attended President Marx’s talk about the state of Amherst, which was interesting and at turns inspiring, but we left when the older alumni began some “back in my day”-style questions. We had burritos at Bueno for lunch, and checked out some of the depressingly nice improvements that have been made to campus since our time, especially in the area of freshman dorms; let’s just say the loss of the original, triple-filled James is not lamented. I went to a jazz concert in Buckley, which brought back a lot of memories of performances there, both by me and by real artists. It was a really pleasant day, and ended with a banquet and party long into the night, where many people who hadn’t been there all weekend made appearances. It was nice to catch up with folks, and one couldn’t help but notice the changes this time around; last time, a few people were married and one or two had kids, and this time, nearly everyone was married and many, many had kids or kids on the way. Our fifteenth reunion will be another world altogether, I’m sure. [Photos of the visit to Amherst].
Sunday morning, we enjoyed a very quick trip back to the City – 2:15 from Amherst to Manhattan – and that afternoon, we headed to the airport. After a two hour and forty minute (hmm…) delay leaving JFK, we finally took off and headed back across the country. And on a purely for future reference note, I watched the end of the Yankees and Red Sox matchup, from just before A-Rod hit a two-out. two-strike pitch off Papelbon for a home run, through the end, when Mariano struck out Ortiz, Ramirez, and Youkilis, on the airplane, live, on the back of the seat in front of me. I know JetBlue and others have been offering live TV on airplanes for a few years, but I just wanted to note that last night was the first time I watched some. I only mention this because I wish I’d noted the first DVD I ever watched, or the first YouTube video I ever watched (ok, that was “Lazy Sunday,” but you get the point).
