We have been celebrating 60 years since graduating from college. Carol and I were not able to share our graduations 60 years ago since they were concurrent, mine in Providence and hers in Buffalo. That was the last time we were separated before beginning our 60 years of marriage. 

This weekend has been a mix of lots of food and drink and lots of trying to remember long lost relationships with classmates and freshman dorm mates. It is truly amazing how many freshman residents of Littlefield, a smallish animal house, are gathered here. Out of 41 registered attendees I am sure of at least 6. Today Carol and I attended a Literary Salon at which four alumni who have recently published books talked about their path to publishing and about their books.: Elise Hart Kipness a former sports reporter; Dominique Shelton Leipzig, a lawyer practicing in the arena of AI: Mark Cecil, a journalist now story teller and Jaime Green, an editor venturing into a work that crosses the line between fact and science fiction. I will be reading their books over the next couple of months as I find them in electronic format. 

In the afternoon our class had its own seminar with speakers on covid, living with Parkinsons and being the first woman executive producer at CBS working with Cronkite, Rather and Kuralt. It was a fascinating 90 minutes. The challenges these people faced were severe.

All of the speakers we heard attributed their success in their striving to the learnig they received here at Brown. The authors all graduated under the Open Curriculum which was implemented in 1967 which enabled them to freely wander out of their supposed areas of specialization and venture into other fields without risk to their GPA since there is no GPA when most courses are taken Pass/Fail. I have not even scratched the surface of the depth of Open Curriculm as practiced at Brown. 

So much of the Brown campus is vertically challenging for these older legs. I did not remember all the lesser hills being as significant as they are now. Just walking across any of the quads results in a noticeable change of elevation. Of course it being a college campus with thousands of “extra” people there is lots of walking just to get from place to place. We haven’t brought the car to campus yet depending on Lyft to save the hunt for a parking place and the time spent negotiating unexpected road closures. This morning acces to the dining hall (the Ratty) was blocked from all directions. Our Lyft driver spotted a golfcart with a driver and asked him to bring us the rest of the way, which he did. She got an extra tip. Tonight Jonathan Kagan gave us a lift back to the hotel. He had his car near our dinner and there was very little traffic. 

Tomorrow is the commencement walk though the Van Wickle Gates which will be open outward for the only time in the year. The classes walk though the gate in the order they graduated so we will be among the first through the gate. Then we get to stand and greet the later graduates until the class of 2024 takes their first walk out through the gate.