Weekend in Andover

So I finally made it back home. Reunion weekend was a lot of fun but it passed by like a blur. Unfortunately, I had to work Friday so I left a little early to catch an early evening flight to Boston. I had just booked my flight and car rental last weekend and of course the prices were insanely high so I had to spring for the cheapest option which happened to be a layover flight through Milwaukee on Midwest Airlines, which I have never flown. The airline also uses a different terminal than the main terminal at Minneapolis' airport, which turned out to be a little more difficult to navigate than the main terminal. My first impression of Midwest Airlines was that it was still stuck in the stone age. They didn't even have kiosks to check in. Despite the fact that I had an electronic ticket and was not checking any bags (I don't do the $15 baggage fee unless I absolutely have to), I still had to go to a counter to check in. They also recycle their employees. The same folks who check you in at the ticket counter are the same people who board you on the plane at the gate. I just kept thinking those employees must get a good workout with all that back and forth between the gate and the ticket counter. As it turned out though, I actually like the airline. The small commuter planes weren't cute (of the 4 flights - there were no more than 80 passengers on all but one). But the service was nice. And they served warm, fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, which in the days of charging for potato chips and other crappy plane food, is considered a luxury in my book. By the time I got to Logan airport, picked up my economy rental car (a Ford Focus, which makes my little Corolla seem like an SUV...I kept feeling like the wind was blowing me off the road if I went over 60 mph), and got to the hotel, it was almost about midnight. When I walked into the hotel lobby, I just saw a sea of black folk and I knew they had to be there for the reunion. As it turned out, I actually knew most of them (some of them I had to look in their faces real close b/c of course I haven't seen them in at least 12 years so it was a little hard to tell who was who at first glance). One of the folks in the lobby was a girl who a year ahead of me at Andover, and as it turned out, she had just arrived herself and was just as hungry as I was so we made plans to try to find some food. Of course, there was already talk of parties going on in certain rooms, and some folk had already hit some local bars. My main focus however was food. After I got settled, Jen and I set out on an adventure which took us to a spot called Glory in downtown Andover (and I use "downtown" loosely - it's about three blocks...I should have known it wasn't worth going to - it was in Andover, after all). When we got there, it turned out the folks we were supposed to be meeting up with had already left in search of a 24 hour diner in Lowell, one of the neighboring towns. So we starting driving through the backwoods of Andover and Lowell (keep in mind, it's 1am and I'm driving while black about 80mph through the back streets of a town that claimed only one black family among their residents when I was living there....I don't recommend this). We were trying to catch up with the train of cars that were headed to the diner. Our timing was perfect - we caught up to them just as they arrived at the diner. It turned out the crew included a bunch of folks I knew who were 1-2 years behind me, a guy who came to Andover after I graduated, and a old guy friend who was a year above me. I ordered a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich (gotta love the all night diner where you can get breakfast anytime...besides I figured it was a safe option since diners are always a little questionable). The diner was pretty live (my guess was that it was the only place for miles that was still open). We ate and caught up, then left around 3am and headed back to the hotel. That was supposed to be the end of my night, but then I got talked into going to the "afterparty" in a friend's room right down the hall from mine, and there were about 9 or 10 of us just kicking it - laughing, joking around, catching up, reminiscing. I was the youngest one in the room so I got to hear all the stories about things that happened before my time, or that I wasn't clued into back in the day. I also got to catch up with a good friend that was also at Wharton with me. When I blinked it was 5:30am - one of my friends was knocked out on the sofa (it was his room that we were in - I guess he wasn't waiting for us to leave). I headed back to my room and passed out myself. The morning activities started around 8 or 8:30 - I think. I wouldn't know b/c I clearly wasn't there. I woke up at 9am - only b/c my phone rang and I couldn't go back to sleep.
I dragged myself out of bed and started making calls - it turned out that I was not alone in sleeping in. I didn't actually make it to the campus until about noon. My friend Shira was on one of the panels and I really wanted to see it, and it turns out I got there just in time to hear her speak. When I came out of the auditorium, one of the first people I ran into was my long lost friend Krystle who had fallen off the scene about 12 years ago after we took a road trip from Boston to DC. Of all the folks I hadn't seen, I was most glad to see her mainly b/c I hadn't seen her in so long, and I have so many memories of us and our crazy episodes back in high school. She was my hang out partner when I went to Spain the summer b/w Junior and Senior year, we got ready for prom together, and not to mention that crazy DC road trip. I hung around for the event activities until about 2pm but then I had had enough of the talks. It was good but I really went to reunite with folks. I took off w/ a group of girls that were at Andover when I was there and we went for a walk around campus to reminisce. It sounded like a good idea in theory...that is, until it started raining and the wind starting blowing a madman. I was freezing my behind off in a dress and some boots (which are not recommended for walking across grass - which I tried to do when walking back to freshman year dorm).
Walking through the campus was the most enlightening experience of the entire weekend for me. We went to Stinson (one of the dorms where the girls who were with me had lived) and Hale House (my freshman year dorm) and talked with some of the current students who were sweethearts. I was struck with how innocent the students were and it reminded me of the enclosed world that students live in there. There's a certain sense of safety and oblivion to the outside world. It made me wonder if those of us from the inner city were the same way when we were there...its such a difference from living in the city or going to school elsewhere. Visiting my freshman year dorm was refreshing - there was a sign on the common room (where guests - translation: boys - can hang out with the girls in the dorm under the watchful eye of the house counselor) that said the girls were only allowed one male visitor at a time. One of the current students said it was because a bunch of boys from Rockwell (a popular boys dorm) came over there at the beginning of the school year and had a party in their common room with all the Hale girls. I cracked up b/c some traditions die hard - when I lived there, we had a very close relationship with the Rockwell boys and they hung out with us in our common room all the time too. It was a sign of the times that now house counselors felt it was a problem and there was a need to change the rules to address it. It was also a sign of the times that all the dorms were security protected - you have to swipe a card to get access to the dorms (although again, back to that sense of security - the girls just let us in not even knowing who we were). On our tour, we also visited the Gelb Science Center which is a new building that didn't exist when we were there. The building was locked but a Biology professor who was working putting up signs in the building (I didn't know him but some of my classmates did) gave us a key to walk around the building and see the classrooms. Again, back to that sense of security. We wandered through the building, which was beautiful, and I felt a little cheated. Honestly, it felt like I was in a college building (the facilities were way nicer than our labs at Northwestern) and I felt a little cheated. Maybe if that building were there when I was a student I might have been more inspired in the sciences. I always liked science (Bio and Chem anyway) but our old building was drab and dark, and very uninspiring. I wondered if the current students realized how fortunate they were.
Saturday evening there was a dinner, which of course I was late to - I went back to the hotel after the campus tour and took a nap (and threw on some jeans). I only got about a half hour more of sleep but it was a good power nap and gave me energy to get through the night. At dinner Jay Rogers, a retired black professor at Andover spoke and he was incredibly inspiring. He reminded all of us of the people who struggled and sacrificed to ensure black and latino students on the campus had support and were set up to succeed at a school like Andover. He had been there since the mid 80's after leaving a tenured job as a college professor (which I had never known) because he was struck by how intelligent the students at Andover were. After dinner, we took photos by decade (the 90's were broken up into 2 groups b/c there were so many of us). I checked out the Ryley Room which was the student hangout on campus - and got kicked out. Apparently, after 9pm only students are allowed in there. The placed had been fixed up so nice - it actually looked like a place you would WANT to hang out at (as opposed to the somewhat dumpy place it was when I was there - although they did make fried dough which I used to be in love with, and I had some buddies that worked down there who used to hook us up with free food sometimes). They were having a party down there Saturday night which looked like it was probably going to be fun. Us alums headed out to our own party - at the Log Cabin, a building about a half mile off the campus, which I never even knew existed. It was literally a log cabin, and I walked in the DJ was playing Jade (Don't Walk Away)....I should have known then the music selection wasn't going to be too my liking. I think the DJ was trying to cater to too many different groups (80's alums, 90's alums, 21st century alums, blacks, latinos, west indians)...and he wasn't quite catering to me at all. It wasn't until the end of the night that he started actually playing music from the last two years. All in all though, I had a good time with my classmates, and somehow managed to lose my voice in the process. I passed on the afterparty Saturday night b/c I am pushing 30 y'all...I can't hang two nights in a row, lol.
This morning I was up at 7:30am and left the hotel around 9 after taking advantage of the full breakfast at the hotel (I'm talking waffles, eggs, thick sausages, fresh fruit, potatoes, biscuits, croissants....nice). I already told y'all about my travel experiences...after I couldn't get on the early flight from Milwaukee to Minneapolis, my friend and I went to a sit down restaurant and had pizza and just recapped the weekend. We had a lot of discussion about the people in our lives who encouraged us long before we ever got to Andover, and the experiences that led us to attend boarding school, and even how the experience prepared us for life beyond Andover (I'll spare y'all the details). Luckily, my friend was able to get a seat from standby on the flight to Minneapolis, so we took the light rail home. I got to downtown Minneapolis around 6/6:30 and decided to pop into the downtown Target store real quick to get some basics (ie. milk) and some movies to watch...and lo and behold, I was forced back into my world of life in the Twin Cities - I ran into my business analyst from work who was doing some quick shopping himself. I was hoping I didn't look crazy b/c I was operating on very little sleep, had been traveling all day and sure felt like a mess (he did say I looked "tired", lol...I think he might be too Minnesota Nice to tell me if I truly looked a mess anyway). I talked to him for a minute then told him I'd see him in the morning - I'm not ready to deal with realities of work just yet. Oh, I do have one work thing to comment on though: my product is on ad this week so if you see it, let me know if you think it's compelling or not.
Enough work talk. I'm about to go eat, work out for a few minutes, get ready for bed and lay in my bed and watch movies until I fall asleep. That's all folks!