“How was your afternoon?” he asks as he shoves six pair of socks and no underwear into his overnight bag. Fletch is not a Packing Viking, bless his heart.
“Not bad,” I reply. “I had a manicure [OPI’s Conquistadorable seemed to be the most responsible-looking color.] and went to Palm Beach Tan. By the way, when I was doing my speech research, I saw that a bunch of NASA guys are receiving the same award tomorrow from the Engineering school. Wonder if any of the astronauts are getting ready for their big day with a spray tan?”
“Doubtful,” he says, tossing in sneakers and some workout shorts.
“Um, are you going to the Co-Rec for a pickup game of squash or are you coming to a banquet with me? If it’s the latter, why don’t I help you pack?” I suggest.
Not long after this, we’ve got everything Fletch could need for the twenty-four hours we’ll be gone. From pajamas to going-out shoes, I’ve helped Fletch neatly prepare for any eventuality on the road. However, he argues when I try to get him to put his shirt and suit in the suitcase.
“They’ll get wrinkled,” he complains. “I’ll grab them tomorrow.”
“No,” I reply. “You’ll put them in the car right now; otherwise you’ll forget, if the last three weddings you attended in gym shoes are any indication. I am not about to receive my major award with you in a Donkey Punch T-shirt.”
And with that, we’re ready to go.
Joanna and her husband, Michael, were planning on driving down with us, but they have a schedule conflict tomorrow morning and need to leave at the crack of dawn, so it’s just us in the car. Fletch breaks his cardinal rule of no eating because I was so busy not writing my speech that I also didn’t go to the grocery store and there’s no food in the house. We stop at Arby’s and I do my best not to drip Horsey Sauce on upholstery. [Oh, forbidden potato cakes, you’re the sweetest potato cakes of them all!]
When we arrive at Purdue, I’m shocked at how much it’s changed. I guess I didn’t expect it to be exactly the same as when I left, but… that’s a lie.
I totally did.
I wanted to see the Purdue of 1985 when Joanna and I used to stumble home to our teeny room in Earhart Hall after way too much trash can punch, sweaty and happily exhausted from dancing to Modern English in Keds.
I hoped that somehow, even though it was April, I’d see kids in barn jackets using ironing boards and cafeteria trays to slide down a snowy Slayter Hill.
I was secretly expecting to drive by the fraternity houses and spot familiar faces out there, clad in khaki shorts and white oxfords, feeding sips of Little Kings Cream Ale to a bandanna-wearing black lab/house mascot named Murph.
Instead, I see an army of Justin Bieber clones, texting away as they hurry from one spanking new university building to the next. It’s all I can do to not scream, “Get a haircut!” at each of them as we cruise by. Oh my God, I feel so old.
As we pull up to the Union, I’m melancholy when I realize that all my favorite spots are gone, paved over into parking garages or turned into Starbucks. I haven’t been back at school since the late nineties specifically because I was afraid this would happen.
I never wanted to be that pathetic alum accosting a bunch of undergrads about all the places that ceased to exist decades ago, all “Hey, kids, you could get a steak for a nickel over there and see a moving-picture show, too!”
I never wanted to be the weird older lady pointing out the front corner of the Yacht Club, where the manager Ferris kept the topless bronze statue that I’d always cover in a paper-napkin bikini whenever I sat in front of it. No one cares that was the exact spot where we raised a glass to Kurt Cobain after his suicide, playing an endless round of Nirvana songs on the jukebox. I remember how we hugged each other, saying over and over with the kind of sincerity exclusive to kids in their twenties, “This changes everything.”
No one wants to know how good the pizza at Garcia’s was, or how bad the drinks were at Pete’s. Or how I’d meet my best friend, Andy, at the little Chinese place every Friday for the three-dollar lunch special and how every week we’d laugh at how they refused to give us butter knives. [So, yeah, pretty much my equivalent of steak for a nickel.]
Don’t get me wrong—I prefer to live in the now. I love my life and the people in it and nostalgia generally makes me happy. I wouldn’t relive my college days on a bet. No one tells you in your twenties how much better your forties are. [Primarily because if you knew how much your thirties would suck, you’d drink bleach.] But being back on campus, in the one spot where so many of my best memories were created, and finding a setting that’s completely changed is disconcerting.
Fletch and I check into the Union. We get ready for the reception before the awards banquet and I dress carefully in a black wrap dress, accented with a snappy plaid scarf/shawl. Truth? I’m not wearing this piece for fashion as much as for function. I call this my “good eatin’ scarf” as it protects whatever I’m wearing underneath from errant mayo and salad dressing dribbles. As pleased with myself as I am at having created this solution, I remind Fletch to give me a kick if I
