Go to a college as small as Middlebury and you know everybody, at least those in your year. They put out a publication each annum entitled "New Faces" with pictures of all the freshmen, you can look them up, hell, you can even find these booklets online today, such that you can pin a face to a name, but not always.
Then again, the student body has grown significantly over the past two decades. Now there are 2,580 students instead of the 1,800 when I went, which was a significant increase over the 1,200 of just a few years before. So maybe now you can be anonymous. Or detached and thinking big. With the internet you've got the entire world at your fingertips, you can be a loner in real life, but a star online, everybody can find their group, and this is a good thing, because loneliness kills.
But it didn't used to be this way.
When I went to college there was not only no internet, but no cable TV, only one snowy TV channel and I won't say it was like "Lord of the Flies," but in many ways it was. Groupthink ultimately pulled everyone into wearing the same clothes and behaving in the same way. They'd come from the city in their finery, but in a matter of months the most sophisticated women were wearing overalls and painter's pants, and the men too. The brands weren't Gucci or Chanel, but L.L. Bean and Bass, the maker of the famous Bass Weejun, the ultimate penny loafer. Everybody became downwardly mobile, it was the opposite of today where you use your clothing to signify your place on the totem pole, the goal was to be equal and not to stand out, and to sell yourself on your brain, what was inside, as opposed to outside. Some of this was the ethos of the day, a lot of it was specific to a highly intelligent coterie in a hothouse in rural Vermont.
Not that I knew all this when I applied. All I knew was the campus was the most beautiful extant (testimonials are rampant), the school was coed when Ivies and others were just dipping their toes into coeducation, and the school had its own ski area, closer to campus than any other college/ski area combination.
What's not to like?
Well, it took me a while to figure out.
And it took me a while to figure out what was vaunted, was really insignificant.
Like Winter Carnival. Sounds like a party, right? Well, what it really means is there are some NCAA ski races, a hockey game and a concert. Don't think about getting lucky, almost no one got lucky going to a school where your classmates were akin to brothers and sisters. Then again, so many events that are promoted as paragons of fun, incredible experiences, are not, if you go alone, good luck, if you go with friends maybe you can party.
And when the snow was melting, there was a winter analog. Spring Weekend.
What do I remember about that weekend in April 1971...
Well, going half-drunk to a field where some students with Husqavarnas and other motorcycles I'd never heard of went 'round a dirt track and jumped into the air. And this was before the era of safety codes, there were no barriers, we were right nearby, drinking...that's what you do in the hinterlands, drink, although they now do heroin too. There's a lot going on in the city. There's not much going on in the country. And it's the same damn people every day, and there's little opportunity, and people drink and drug just to get through life. I'd like to tell you that's untrue, but I'd be lying, go live there, you'll see.
And I believe the Saturday night concert was Brewer & Shipley, who were never hip. Then again, knowing the concert business today I realize small college campuses are at the mercy of secondary agents who are at the mercy of primary agents who either want to sell that which no one wants, or fill a date, and the odds of getting good talent at a fair price is nearly nonexistent, so you get an act with some name recognition that no one is really excited about seeing. And students go to the show because they've got nothing better to do. Although there are always those who say they can't afford it, even though tickets are three or four dollars, because appearing poor is a badge of honor at elite institutions, it's especially those who went to name prep schools who say they've got no money.
But instead of national sports activities on Spring Weekend there were amateur events. And as a freshman, I was still game. Hell, I'd even played volleyball in the fall. So when it came time to sign up for the bike race, I was all in.
And I had a new bike.
Every team needed a bike. This was just when ten speeds with dropped handlebars were becoming the thing. Before beach cruisers, before mountain bikes, before electric bikes. And I had a white Peugeot. Cost $92.50. Yes.
But we needed four riders. And two of them had to be women. Where would we get the women?
And this was long before Title IX, long before all women participated in sports. So we were flummoxed, and then one guy said he'd take care of it.
So it was a relay race, on a gray spring day, in the fifties. It's almost always gray in the spring in Vermont, if it's a bluebird day you put on your shorts and go swimming at the quarry, even if it's not even sixty degrees, because they're so damn rare.
And like seemingly every college, Middlebury is on a hill. And the relay race was around campus. And it started right in front of my dorm, at the top of the hill, Hepburn Hall.
I can't remember if I was first or second. I completed my circuit and passed on the bike and as the legs of the race unfolded it was stunning, we appeared to be winning! I was just into participating, I didn't want to sit in my dorm room with a blank face.
And then the bike was passed for the last leg to a girl I'd never met, and she took off like a shot.
But she came back dead last. Walking the bike. The chain had fallen off.
Now to be honest, I wasn't thrilled it was my bike. No one ever takes care of your equipment like you do. But this girl walking my bike from the Chapel to Hepburn Hall had an exhausted, pained expression and couldn't stop talking when she was in earshot. There were only two or three of us still left. And she kept talking, we were having a conversation.
And I was impressed. This was not the typical Middlebury grind, this was not someone repressed and into her look, this was Stephanie Cole.
Made a big impression on me, but I never had another conversation with her again, not for the ensuing three plus years.
But I never forgot the interaction.
Now maybe she was on a different track academically, I'd never seen her in any of my classes. And she didn't seem to hang out with the girls I knew, the ones we had dinner with at the SDUs (Social Dining Units, eventually they were named after donors, but everybody still called them the SDUs). But I always went to the same SDU, because it closed last, you could get dinner until seven long before the 24/7 food service of today's gourmand campuses. You end up in your own rut, actually it's easier than thinking about it.
Now time took its toll on me at Middlebury. At the advent of junior year I realized I'd seen all its tricks, all it had to offer, and what it really was was an educational factory for those who knew how to study, but not much more. Culture? I grew up fifty miles from New York City, forty five percent of these kids had been in the confines of prep schools. The others? They came from all over the country. And when I was done, I got the hell out of there.
To line up a job in Alta, Utah, the only place Middlebury meant anything, the only place it had name recognition.
But that was one of the great things about moving to California. No one asked me my SAT scores, no one asked me where I'd gone to college, to the point where I just started saying "a small school back east." And if they pushed me, they'd still never heard of it. But once the boomers became parents college admissions competition became fierce and there was that Charles Murray incident and more people have heard of Middlebury, but I graduated nearly half a century ago. Seems like yesterday, but it's a long damn time.
Now they mail you the alumni magazine every quarter. It's transparent, they want your money. And most of the publication is stories about the activities of professors and graduates, but at the end of the magazine, there are pages and pages of class notes. Where you can mail in and tell your story.
I intentionally never mailed in. But that does not mean I didn't read the stories.
To a great degree it's bragging. And there are pictures of friends who felt they were superior. But the truth is, you're judging yourself. And them. That's right, how does your life compare to theirs?
And the truth is it took me ten years to get over going to Middlebury. To realize not everybody in America was smart, never mind checking you on your word choices.
And there's a five year reunion. That's just for the hard core.
And then a ten year... I was not in the greatest place, breaking up with my girlfriend, but I never would have flown cross-country to attend anyway.
And they have them every five years thereafter. And they posts lists of the people who go, and pictures too, and that's when you realize very few people actually go to the reunion, and really it's about reconnecting with your friends, and the truth is the friends I made there I still want to have contact with I do.
And as the years go by, fewer and fewer people send in updates. To the point where the class correspondents implore you to. And then you're just like the old classes you saw in the magazine back when you graduated. There were only one or two people testifying, everybody else was silent. Maybe because their story was already written, there was nothing left to brag about, but one thing is for sure, everybody still reads the notes.
And then back in 2013 the magazine did a story on me! It seemed like I'd come full circle, they sent a professional photographer to my house, the article was great and...
Crickets.
I assumed I'd hear from some of my classmates. But no. Because they didn't want to hear that I'd succeeded and they hadn't. They were old enough to have their careers written in stone, but still...they just couldn't be friendly and acknowledging. That's cool, I get it.
But the truth is you never forget your college days. Especially at a place like Middlebury, where no one ever goes home for the weekend, where you're all in it together, they're formative years.
And the fiftieth reunion is right around the corner.
I wasn't planning to go to that one either, but prior to lockdown I was at a party at an actor's house who told me he'd just come back from his fiftieth high school reunion in Minnesota. I asked him why he went. He said his parents were dead, he was never going back to Minnesota, this was the last chance, after this it was over.
So I thought of going to my high school reunion. I've never ever been to any reunion, but it's the fiftieth, now or never. But then I thought about the people I'd see... I couldn't wait to get out of high school, best years of your life? Not for me.
But I'm still reading the damn class notes.
And you read for every year you were there, the three older classes and the three younger ones. And unfortunately, there comes a moment when you can no longer put a face to the name. Happens when you're not paying attention. You know everybody, just like you remember every single class you took, and then they're gone. Sure, you remember those who lived with you in the dorm, your friends, but everybody else? They fade away.
And I used to read the recent classes too. To see what they were up to after graduation. The younger generations are world-beaters in a way we never were.
But now I no longer even do that. Too much time has passed. I realize I might still feel young, like I just graduated from college yesterday, but if the students saw me on campus they'd snicker at the old guy, it's the nature of life.
And since it's the Covid era, the college e-mails you the class notes. You used to have to wait for the print magazine to see them.
And the e-mail came in about a week ago and I kept it, noted it as new, told myself when I had the time I'd dive in, but I never did.
And then it was Friday afternoon, yesterday, and it was now or never. The world slows down on Friday afternoons and I thought I'd tie up all the loose ends, and the last one was the Middlebury class notes.
Which were unsatisfying. Because, like I said, few of my compatriots weighed in.
And it's a PDF, not a physical book, and I get interrupted a few times, but I decide to scroll to the end, I'm a completist.
And that's when I get to the death notices. You always look for those who were in your class.
But they had a special box. For those who'd died in the interim when the magazine was essentially put to bed but not yet published. And in that list was...
Stephanie Cole.
I immediately started Googling, looking for the obituary. And I found quite a long one, which is not always the case.
The picture was not good. Then again, I don't look too good either.
And she was my same age.
And her story...
She'd graduated third in her class in high school. She'd been a ski racer at Middlebury, that I knew, but no one paid attention to NCAA sports when I was in college, I went to one football game because my parents were in town, that was it. Never a basketball game... No one I knew ever went to a competition.
And after graduating she'd taught skiing and then gotten a job with the U.S. Ski Team in Park City. But on the drive out there, she had a bipolar event.
That was the word on Stephanie. I'd asked my bike-racing friends. She had mental health issues.
So she had to give up that job in Utah, and ultimately came back to New Hampshire, had a son and daughter, and worked in libraries.
And then she died.
Oh, of course she did much more than that, but I couldn't get over the fact that she passed. It was all over. That's all they wrote. Done. In the rearview mirror. Whew!
It's starting to happen. My generation is starting to go. And the one thing about baby boomers, they don't think they're ever going to die, they believe biology doesn't apply to them. If they just repeat the mantra, wear hip clothing, maybe even get plastic surgery, they'll be here forever.
But that is patently untrue.
Some people live to be a hundred.
Some not even old enough to collect Social Security, which is not your money, it's an insurance program, to make sure you have some cash in your old age if you run out, which many baby boomers are gonna, because they never saved for the future, were too busy living a high lifestyle, spending all their dough.
But the finality of death. It's eerie.
When it's all over it won't matter I went to Middlebury College. It won't matter what I did. A few people will remember me, and then I'll die. I thought I had my whole life in front of me, and then the hourglass flipped when I wasn't watching and now the sand is pouring and I'm racing to complete, get done, go to the places I always assumed I would but am now realizing I won't.
And it's not even the same world. A number one is not the ubiquitous track it once was. A movie is not something to stimulate your mind and talk about. One tries to keep up, but then at some point you wonder whether you should even bother, you're old, embrace what you had, don't bother trying to grab that which might be meaningless just because it's new.
I'm too old to die young. My obituary won't say I was cut down before my time. And unlike Stephanie Cole, I won't leave any children behind. The lineage ends with me.
This is my life. Most of it has already been written. I can't go back and change it, it's carved in stone. Do I have regrets? ABSOLUTELY! But that's history now.
It's an endless march from now on. My generation, my friends, are going to pass. It's started, it's picking up steam. And some will die from bad behavior, some from accidents, but with most it will be a health issue that they have little control over. Cancer. They'll get sicker and sicker, be a shadow of their former selves, hold on, and then die.
And you don't want to live too long, because then all your friends are gone.
But I wish some of them were still here.
Stephanie Cole Nelson: bit.ly/3zcQXkI
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