Sunday morning dawned with a downpour that lasted all morning, making a graceful formal entrance problematic. Our hosts left early for church, but with muffins and fruit on the table for us. We found a parking spot as close to the campus student center as possible, and still got wet, despite breaking out our umbrella, something we rarely do in the Pacific Northwest, where it usually rains less aggressively. Since the Internet had gone out at our lodging, probably due to the rain, we dragged everything onto the campus to upload files, then returned the bigger computer to the car before brunch.
The processional included flags of every country from which this year’s graduates came. There were 27 international students in the class of 2015.
After brunch, the graduates, parents, and alumni trekked across campus to the field house. Fortunately, the rain had slowed. One of our own classmates, Ray McCaskey, is the current chairman of the Board of Regents, so he was on the platform to deliver the welcome and to congratulate each graduate as they received their diploma. Our numbers were diminished by now, as only 26 alumni and spouses marched in the processional to represent our 50-year class. At the recessional, we joined the faculty in applauding the graduates as they rejoined their friends and families for the post-commencement reception.
Don and Diane joined us for early dinner at the Bremer Diner downtown and we traded memories and reflected on our current status. Amazing how old friends simply pick up where they left off after a separation of decades.
Don, Harold, and Dave pose for a picture together. Don was campus photographer and Harold and Dave were in sports, now live in California, Minnesota, and New York, respectively, back together again, hopefully not for the last time.
Luther Hall, on left, now primarily administrative offices. New chapel on right.
We started our second day of reunion festivities with a coffee on campus at the library coffee shop, skipping the morning’s lecture on new outreach beyond the campus, through internet and other means. So, the first item on our social agenda was lunch, which included brief and not-so-brief introductions by each alumnus, so the lunch stretched well beyond the 2:00 schedule for group photos.
The remodeled library, adding a coffee shop in front.
After the group photo, we took a few photos of close associates, then parted ways, as our friends had family obligations this evening in nearby Cedar Rapids. We, however, relaxed in one of the lounge areas in the student center and chatted with other alumni and spouses until time for the formal social, skipping yet another event, open house at the college president’s residence. The effort to rush from event to event seemed overwhelming.
Don, Diane, Judy, and me at the photo session in front of Main Hall. We realized just before our trip that semi-formal attire would be required for some events: Judy wove fabric for her vest and constructed it as a class project last month, and I found a nice suit at a thrift shop: the jacket was a regular and not a tall, but all i n all a better fit than a suit purchased “on the road” a few years ago, since I have gained quite a few kilos since.
The evening dinner was excellent, and good conversation. We had originally not intended to go, thinking the event was primarily for graduates and families, but signed up late after noting that the event was primarily for teacher awards and to acknowledge our reunion, with some faculty and the board of regents in attendance.
A fair number of alumni indicated they would not take part in the graduation ceremonies, as they had other events with family or former students to attend. We also had a conflict, with our great-grandson’s graduation in New Mexico this week and celebration tonight, but much too far away to participate in both, even partly. This being Memorial Day weekend, others had cemetery rounds to make across the state.
The pipe organ in the fine arts building. In the summer of 1964, I worked on the campus maintenance crew, and we painted the wall behind the organ and also the ceiling–careful not to drip or spatter. I think it was in a different place then, so it wasn’t this wall.
Today, we attended on-campus events: a talk about how the student population demographics are changing, from the admissions department, then a guided tour of the campus, mostly new buildings or buildings that have been radically remodeled since our “brightest days.” The radio station, KWAR, once backstage at the old theater building, is now in the new McElroy center, in a much smaller space in the digital age, and a televison studio has been added across the hall.
The field house is ready for graduation ceremonies, a much larger space than when we graduated.
We had lunch in the new (to us) student meal center. The remodeled and expanded facility is laid out very much like the facility at Western Washington University, where the 1913 Association of Northwest Weaving Guilds conference was held. We opted out of the bus tour of the town, instead joining conversations among fellow alumni. The topics were germane to our common age–retirement, keeping engaged in the things that matter to us, and downsizing and uncluttering 50 years of accumulated “stuff.”
At dinner, with my former roommate, Don, and on the right, his sister Betty (also graduated with us), wife Diane, and Judy.
The day ended with a dinner at the banquet room atop the community health center a few blocks from the campus, with continued socialization.
The curious part of a reunion is that, in college, I didn’t associate with a large number of my classmates: Don and I were the only two Physics majors in our class, and we took many of our core liberal arts classes out of sequence with the rest of our class. Also, many of the returning members of our class for this reunion are retired Lutheran ministers, with whom we shared few, if any, classes. I spent most of my non-class time either running the cafeteria dish-washing machine or behind the microphone at the radio station, out of sight. Don was more recognizable as the photographer for the campus newspaper and yearbook. But, we found that we now have much in common with our classmates in retirement, though our life experiences have been very different.
The atrium of the “W,” the joint Wartburg-Waverly Sports and Health complex, where the graduation ceremonies will take place. This facility is huge, with swimming pool, exercise area, ball courts, and the indoor track shown in a previous photo., plus locker rooms, classrooms, and a snack and juice bar.
the “You are here” dot shows us at the trail junction east of town.
After an excellent breakfast with our host, we found the Alumni office at Wartburg and picked up our registration packet for the weekend Commencement and Class of ’65 reunion activities, then changed into bicycling mode to explore the Waverly Rail Trail. The trail started next to what I remembered as the Carnation powdered milk plant, now a Nestle candy bar factory. We braved a flock of Canada geese guarding the trestle across the Cedar River, stopping at mid-span for photo opportunities.
Geese guard the rail bridge across the river.
After crossing busy Bremer Avenue, the trail skirted the river bend on the southeast edge of town, then climbed gradually through farms and woods and over ravines and streams on high trestles to the trail junction at Hwy 63, where we turned around and headed back to town, for a 26-km out-and-back trip.
Tunnels and bridges appeared frequently on the trail.
After changing back into street clothes, we drove downtown for lunch at the Wild Carrot Cafe, at first glance simply a candy and gift shop, but with a large dining room in the back, behind the kitchen. The food was good, with larger portions than we are used to in a deli-bakery, but we were hungry after our ride. We had pushed a bit harder to enjoy the speed on the nearly level trail: the GPS reported an average 17.8km/hr moving speed.
At the turn-around point. Signs are in miles, of course.
Another short walk around the campus, afternoon coffee at a shop near the college, and then we retired to our lodging for some Internet time before our evening social, where we met old friends and acquaintances from my college days. It has been 30 years since we were back here. We don’t think we’ve changed all that much, but everyone’s thoughts were, “Where did all these old people come from?”
The social hour, with tiny (but very good) canapés as the only food, was held at the clubhouse (Klubhaus, a concession to the German Lutherans from Wartburg) of an over-55 retirement community north of town, but within sight of the college campus. No, we are not moving to Iowa. Many of my classmates have multi-generational ties to the college or the region and have either stayed or returned from far-flung careers. Amazingly, many of us have had mobile careers, living in the same places but at different times–New England, New Jersey, etc.
Cedar River, Waverly, Iowa
The rest of the weekend is filled with organized activities, so this was perhaps our only opportunity to explore the area on our own. In 50 years, much has changed, on campus and in the town. The campus has been architecturally transformed into more of a community than an institution. At close scrutiny, the old buildings I remember can be seen behind new facades and embedded in newer, larger structures. The most striking changes are the elevated covered walkways (skyways) that connect all of the main buildings, so students rarely need to venture out-of-doors during the harsh Iowa winters.
The town has, like most small towns in America that still thrive, expanded outward. The city core, rather than being filled with abandoned edifices of a former century, shows former elegant bank buildings turned into beauty shops and boutiques, and upper floors renovated into modern urban housing.
Looking downstream on the Cedar River at the bridge that separates “downtown” from “uptown,” the city center on the left and the college district on the right.
After a night of rain, the skies cleared and we packed out and headed south. Rather than endure freeway traffic through Albuquerque, we headed first northbound on I-25, then south on NM 285 to NM 60, and eventually to NM 54, down through Corona, where the Roswell incident began (the purported “flying disc” crash in 1947 took place at ranch near Corona, but the nearest military base then was at Roswell). We stopped for lunch at Carrizozo, talked to a couple running a shop selling local artists work, and then went for dessert and coffee to a small shop on a side street.
Topping off the fuel at Alamogordo, we headed across White Sands Missile Range and past the White Sands National Monument, a sea of gypsum dunes, the remains of untold millions of sea creatures washed down out of the mountains into the Tularosa Basin, which then evaporated, leaving a dry desert of shifting water-soluble granules of not-sand.
We left deep ruts in the mud getting into our B&B in Dona Ana. The main road was also being repaired from the heavy rain.
Our destination was north of Las Cruces, between the villages of Dona Ana and Radium Springs. The heavy rain the day before left the long driveway to our B&B a quagmire of sandy loam, suitable only for 4-wheel drive. But, after unloading and a trip into town for supplies and a visit with one of our daughters who has high-speed Internet access, we noted that the mud had dried considerably, though still soft.
A very spacious casita on the farm… The rain not only turned the driveway to mud, but leaked down the wall and soaked the area rug in the living room–our hostess took it to dry on a fence the next morning.
Our casita is cozy and spacious, but without Internet or TV reception, only a DVD player and a small selection of movies. We did bring our radio from our cabin in Montana, and lots of books, and are enjoying the dark night far from the city and the smells of a working farm, with horses, goats, and chickens nearby and a bowl of fresh-laid eggs in the refrigerator. The silence is broken by an occasional train passing by, the tracks about 500 meters to the east.
Our lodging while in Las Cruces is on a working farm north of town. Trains and roosters, otherwise very quiet.
