The sabbatical year continues to bring me back into contact with many of my friends from years gone by. You see, my boy Fat invited me to come and watch his son Henry play for the Oberlin College Yeomen, and to co-sponsor a pre game reception for the team. For a variety of reasons I rarely have the desire to watch basketball anymore, but it was Fat’s kid, so I schlepped downtown support my boy. Plus I can’t remember Oberlin ever playing in NYC so I was more than a little curious to see how the team looked today. What I didn’t realize was that Fat also invited a grip of our fellow Obies to the game for a somewhat impromptu Oberlin College mini reunion.
The evening was a weird trifecta of related collegiate events for me. For some reason Oberlin was playing against NYU at a CUNY gymnasium (Hunter College). It was surreal to be surrounded by so many familiar but yet disparate sights and sounds. I should probably say that my allegiances were somewhat conflicted watching two schools I attended competing against one another. But truth be told, I found myself cheering for Oberlin on every play. The fact that Oberlin came away with the decisive win made me happy because I don’t remember our team winning many games in a similar fashion.
I have to admit that for most of the night I was somewhat bemused. It was strange to be with people that I haven’t hung out with in decades. We are now respected members of society as opposed to the radical college students we once were. We are now older. We have families and responsibilities. No longer are we able to just walk across the quad and meet up for lunch, dinner, or a night out partying at the ‘Sco. But with that said, I would be a liar if I didn’t state that at points in the evening it felt like almost no time had passed since I had last saw all of them.
