Though no longer moving mountains, '65 is still in the fight

Note: These past few days we have been in Charlottesville for a grad school reunion. This post is dedicated to those classmates who attended the Reunion. This is not required reading for all of you, unless you simply like reunions. Also we are now in Charlotte NC about to take another break from our Airstream, now parked at the Charlotte airport, as we fly out to Colorado Springs for the annual Board meeting of the Dakota Foundation, where I am a Board member. We will fly back on Saturday and be on the road again, headed for Nashville. So we probably will next post from Nashville after Easter Sunday.

With our Reunion in Charlottesville still vivid in our aging minds I thought I would do a special edition of our travel blog dedicated to the Class of 1965 and our stalwart spouses. Over these more than fifty years of periodic gatherings we have forged special bonds. It seems now that we have reached a stage of trust and sharing that is a significant part of each of our lives. This is special and should be celebrated. Celebrate it we did in Charlottesville last weekend. Thanks to the fine organizing leadership of Dick and Randy Ruffin, we had a nice balance of discussion and discovery.

Discovery at Monticello and at the University of Virginia ( see my Blog of April 9th) and discussion formally and informally over the three days of the Reunion. There were wide ranging topics, from the scanty prom dresses of the UVA sorority sisters who celebrated at our hotel on Friday night to our senses of our country and the world. All agreed that we were in a place unsettling for our Democracy, and most of us despaired about what we could do to help. No one is giving up the fight to make things better, but we recognize that we need the energy and ideas of those of the younger generation to really make a difference.

Mostly we reflected on how fortunate we are to be at a point in our life where we have flexibility to enjoy family and good friends. We paused to reflect on those seven Scholars who have left us. We committed to a 60th Reunion in Long Beach where we can revisit the Queen Mary, the grand lady who transported all of us to Oxford in 1965. We capped the Reunion off, as we have each of them over the years, dancing to the sounds of the Sixties with the inimitable Tim Londergan , DJ Extraordinaire.