I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this before, but I write the Class of 1984's "Class Notes" column for Wesleyan's quarterly alumni magazine. Over the years, I've witnessed the predictable pattern of marriages and births and divorces (although at this weird point in our lives, some of my classmates are just now having their first babies and at least one is a grandparent already!), along with all kinds of professional news. Since Wesleyan seems to spit out nothing but brilliant, creative super-achievers (with one obvious *exception*), after all these years I'm downright blasé about all the earth-shattering news that shows up in my inbox.
When I arrived at Wes in the fall of 1980, I knew that many famous people had preceded me there—for instance, authors Robert Ludlum and Robin Cook, Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow, actor William Christopher (Father Mulcahey), Boston Marathon winners Bill Rodgers and Amby Burfoot (the first collegian to win!), and many more. (I didn't yet know Bill Belichick's name; none of us did.)
As I started settling in to college life, I noticed that a lot of famous people apparently sent their kids there too; I met kids whose last names were Kennedy and Cosby and Alda and.... They never said, "No, no relation."
Now that I'm long past graduation, my classmates (and those who were at Wes at the same time I was, even if we didn't graduate together) are the ones in the news: Eric Asimov, Michael Bay, Dana Delany, Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket), Sebastian Junger, Ayelet Waldman, Joss Whedon, Bradley Whitford, Dar Williams, and so many others I could never list them all. Wikipedia has a lengthy yet incomplete list; look! Judges! CEOs! Winners of Oscars/Emmys/Tonys/Pulitzers! Geniuses and world-savers!
And *me*! Well, someone has to be a suburban stay-home mom, right? I figure I help make all my classmates look even more impressive.
Too funny...Amy and I do the same thing for St. Lawrence Class of '84. Viggo Mortensen was a famous grad. Of course, Kirk Douglas. Eleanor Mondale was there when I was. John Irving's son Colin went there. I was there to round out the diversity...a token, poor, non-preppy.
Posted by: Di | July 29, 2008 at 08:31 PM
My college class (Berkeley, '71) is the one that NEVER has ANY alumni notes. Never. What happened to all that activism? Blowin' in the wind, I guess.
Posted by: Nancy | July 29, 2008 at 09:14 PM
Yeah, I feel like this a lot. All of our college friends are doing big important things, like inventing the Roomba or living on the International Space Station for a couple months. Me? I'm still hearing, "MOM! Come check me!" and running to wipe my 5 year old's butt.
Posted by: Velma | August 02, 2008 at 09:31 AM