The fact that the school is in East Tennessee, one of my favorite parts of the county, was a draw. I figured if the reunion were terribly boring, or embarrassing, or awkward, I would simply head up to the Smokey Mountains.
Jim was a good sport about going. A school like Milligan is an entity foreign to his college history. While I had 112 students in my graduating class and the school had 980 students total back then, Jim's class at The Ohio State graduated 10,000 his year. Milligan must have seemed like a miniature institution, like a fern in a terrarium or guppy in a lake, to Jim; an aberration.
Yet Milligan is growing and above is a photo of one of the five new resident halls which were dedicated this weekend. Seven additional resident halls are planned.
Friday night we saw an excellent production of Godspell at the college theater. Saturday morning we were hosted by the college at a class brunch. Medals were handed out and worn proudly although I now realize, after a little thought, that we were awarded for simply living long enough to celebrate at this event.
The brunch was attended by about 50 50-year graduates and their spouses. Each alumnae was asked to give a synopsis of their last 50 years. That seemed like too broad of a request, summing up fifty years. No time limit was given, the second mistake. It was not long before we were transported to an alum's cross country trip, route by route, a 30 year teaching career and every grade taught and the years, the lives and times of each of the children, each of the grand children, and the darling-ness of great grand children. Twenty minutes later the first speaker sat down....I was mentally adding up the time it would take to get through with this exercise, most of which had already been printed in commemorative booklets given to each of us.At this rate, I was estimating that I would be grateful to return to southern Indiana by Christmas.
Lunch with a good friend, her husband and four children was delightful. The first afternoon event was The Parade. The campus has a main road running through it, about a quarter mile long. That was also the length of the parade. Every sports team marched and the graduates (50 years) rode in Corvettes throwing candy to the crowd. I guess a thousand people attended. Looking across the roadway I spotted my grand daughter who had graduated from Milligan in the Spring. She and her husband had driven down for the reunion and Bryan was playing in the alumnae-student soccer game. They were celebrating their half-year reunion.
A tall crane was set up in the middle of the road and all the reunion attendees spelled out BUFF (for Buffalo Nation, the buffalo being the Milligan mascot). The photographer snapped the photo from the top of the crane.It took some organization and I was thinking we should all be glad that we had a little four-letter mascot and not something like Pioneers or Polar Bears.
Attending the soccer game found the alumnae beating the school's current soccer team 9-1.We walked through a student photography exhibit, my first dorm (built circa 1880) and watched the kids on the inflatables.
Staying with friends who live in the area we met them for dinner and then hurried back to their home to watch The Ohio State - Penn State football game.
On Sunday we attended the church on campus and reconnected with a graduate student (doctorate) that I had met at one of our mutual seminars when I was at the seminary. Ben is the associate minister at the church. He excitedly told me that he had been granted a Lilly Grant and was taking a sabbatical next year. I was so excited for him.
Hopwood Memorial Church has been a fixture at Milligan for over a hundred years. Built of stone the inside seats around 200. At 8:30 a.m. about 100 were in attendance. A woman presided over the reading of Scripture; a woman presided over the communion service; a woman preached. I was delighted.
As we left the campus we stopped to take a photo of me with the bronze buffalo.
Milligan was a good place for me in 1959-1963: small numbers of students, protected environment, beautiful area of the country. It was a good place for me in 2013: friends with whom to reconnect, memories of good times and narrow escapes, and the launching of a lifetime of enrolling at colleges and studying various and sundry courses of study. I told the gathered classmates, when it was finally my turn, that both of my daughters had graduated from Milligan and most recently, my grand daughter and with each succeeding generation of student our family sends to Milligan the quality and character of those students rises exponentially.
And that's what I think about it.
