Every joke, stereotype, and snide comment you have ever heard about 50th college reunions is true. I should know, I attended my 50th Oberlin College reunion in Ohio in May. It really was a bunch of old people in awful outfits with large nametags walking around campus staring at each other’s chests — squinting even though the names are printed in huge font — and then pausing, looking up at your face, and wondering: “Did I know you? Were you in my sophomore dorm? Didn’t we take Geology 101 together?”

There were panels and workshops, banquets and a “talent” show, concerts, museum tours, and a formal “Welcome to the Half Century Club” from the president. And there was a dance. Oh dear. We were terrible dancers 50 years ago and we are still doing the same moves, but we’ve gotten worse.

Friends warned me that the reunion would be “surreal” and “disorienting” and it was both. Everything seemed familiar but weird, like I was walking around in a foggy dream but somehow knew just where to go.

I have been to other Oberlin reunions and can now look back and see the sweep of how we changed and what we talked about. At our 20th reunion, we talked about our careers and stayed up late. At our 30th reunion, we talked about our kids and quietly drifted away from evening events. At our 40th reunion, we talked about retirement and fell asleep during the six-piano extravaganza concert. At our 50th, we forced each other to see endless pictures of our grandchildren and went to bed after dinner.

Determined to defy the odds and contradict the stereotypes, I decided to ride my bike to the reunion. I planned, I trained, and I did it.

Because I only had eight days to get to Oberlin from Northampton, and Ohio is far away, I started in Syracuse, New York — accompanied by a friend on a bike and a friend in a sag wagon. We biked endless miles each day and arrived in Oberlin in time for the reunion.

I am happy to say that I did not crash into anything and nothing crashed into me, I never fell off my bike, and I only pushed my bike up one hill. I almost ran over two snakes, cursed the headwinds, swallowed bugs, and got lost in Buffalo and Cleveland. I was slow but steady.

When we arrived in Oberlin and got off our bikes at Tappan Square in the middle of town, I burst into tears. I was happy that I had ridden my bike to my 50th college reunion, and determined never to do that again.

When I told my college friends there that I had ridden my bike to the reunion there were generally three reactions: One was this immediate response: “On an eBike, right?” (No.)

Another was, “That’s cool. Let me show you pictures of my grandson, you won’t believe how cute he is.” (Yes, very cute.)

A third was, “Wow, love it, let’s call the folks at the Alumni Magazine. (No.)

Since returning from the reunion, local friends have asked me if I learned anything from the reunion or was changed by it. I learned that those worn clichés are true, like: time flies. Didn’t I, as a freshman, haul a footlocker (yes, a footlocker, like I was going to summer camp) up those stairs at Fairchild (now renamed Fairkid by the students) just yesterday?

Another true cliché: everything changes and everything stays the same. People are now pudgy and bald and still make the same wise cracks and laugh with the same familiar laugh.

Another true cliché: You don’t remember days and years, you remember moments. Like drunk biking–riding up and down curbs and around campus (there is nothing to do in Oberlin, Ohio); eating whole wheat donuts from Gibson’s on the steps of Talcott; and sneaking a boyfriend into your all women’s dorm and being caught.

Jack Ridl has written a wonderful poem called “The Reunion.” Every line is perfect, here are a few:

It’s all the same.

And nothing is. We’re still dumb kids, just gray

and tame. If we had to do it again, we’d get it

right. Some are sure they got it right the first

time.

I walked around Oberlin realizing I got some things right when I was there. And I got some things wrong — and isn’t that what the college years, if you are lucky enough to have some college years, is all about? I was blessed to be at a place and in a community where I could learn and stumble, heal and continue, seriously lose my way and not be “canceled” by anyone there.

Some of the most essential lessons that I absorbed during my college years have never left me and inform my current life on a daily basis. My college years spanned 1969 to 1973, the Vietnam War. I learned to protest and organize, march and vigil, and I have been making “good trouble” ever since. I learned that being embedded in a wildly diverse community is hard on your ego (I messed up all the time) and good for your soul. I learned that being uncool, and in fact nerdy, will help you throughout your life if you are open-hearted and trustworthy. I learned that activism is not a stage you go through but a way of life.

I am glad I went to my 50th college reunion, grateful that I could bike there and arrive in one piece, and appreciate that the experience is now inscribed on my heart in a tender way.

The Rev. Andrea Ayvazian, Ministerial Team, Alden Baptist Church, Springfield, is also founder and director of the Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership.]]>