The Reconnection

In July of 1981, I was one of twenty high school graduates who spent a five-week semester at Hamilton College, prior to enrolling for freshman year.  The program, known as the “Higher Education Opportunity Program” (HEOP), was designed to provide us an intensive college orientation, it gave us one course credit of the 16 we needed to graduate, and its provided us an opportunity to thrive and become succe3ssful college students.

It’s July of 1981.  I’m in Carnegie dormitory in what was supposed to be a four-person suite.  One person never showed up.  So my two roommates were Greg Bracero from New York City, and Tony Richardson from Rockland County.  We become good friends – not only through HEOP, but through the four years of trials and tribulations, of classes and of extracurriculars.

Thanks to Facebook, Tony and I “friended” each other after what was nearly 30 years of separation.  The other day, he invited me to his place in Sullivan County.

Time to visit.

The trip through Sullivan County wound me through 30 miles of antique stores and last-minute fall foliage changes.  Tony warned me that my GPS might conk out before I reached his place; however, my BlackBerry Q10’s GPS is much more powerful than your average iGPS or GPSdroid, and I arrived at his place without any trouble.

I was barely out of the car when Tony met me at the entrance to his house.  “You haven’t changed,” he smiled.

“Neither have you,” I replied.  Bro-hug.

Tony invited me into his place, I met his partner Charles (yes, there was the “Charles, Chuck; Chuck, Charles” exchange, ha ha), and his black-and-white cat Sylvester.  We then toured Tony’s property, which included a series of buildings and bungalows.

“We’ve been restoring these buildings,” said Tony.  “Some of them actually make us money as AirBnB locations.”

He wasn’t kidding.  During our visit, one of the properties was actually in use as a movie set.

“This land used to be owned by a woman named Dorothy,” Tony told me.  “She was disabled, and Charles and I took care of her.  And when she passed away, we received the property.  And now we’re making this a home of our own.”

And as we talked, memories came out of us like water over a waterfall.  Names of our HEOP classmates.  Names of our Hamilton classmates.  Moments in time.  Moments that helped define who we were – and what we became.

“I remember the dorm rooms with the televisions in the main suite,” he said.  “I used to watch ThunderCats in the afternoon.”

“ThunderCats?  For me, it was Voltron.”

“Do you remember the rock swing at McEwen Hall?”

“I do remember it.  Do you remember eating at Commons?”

“Yeah, I remember losing weight eating at Commons.”

And we remembered so many other moments – the HEOP waterfight, for example.  We also remembered the tough moments, but in retrospective, we remembered how those moments didn’t knock us down – they made us stronger, they made us more resolved to graduate and take this college experience as far as we could.

“I heard that Jon Bon Jovi’s daughter got busted for drugs on campus,” Tony said.

“Yeah,” I replied.  “And the first thing I said when I heard the news was, ‘I bet she was staying at Dunham Dormitory.’  And I was right.”

We both laughed.

And I thought back again.  The twenty students of the Higher Education Opportunity Program.  There were at least a couple who didn’t come back to Hamilton freshman year.  A couple more transferred out afterward.  But we graduated.  We all made it through.  And like twenty different Petri dishes, our lives changed and morphed and evolved into productive, amazing stories that we could have never possibly written, even in our wildest dreams.

I gave Tony a present – a print of one of my artworks, All Hail the Yellow King!.  And before our 28-year reunion ended, I had to take a photo of us together.

How far we’ve come from July 1981.  The kid from Rockland County and the kid from Albany.  And we’ve moved forward.  We’ve built our lives.  We’ve taken that Hamilton College experience – both the education and the environment – and it helped us thrive.  In more ways than one can imagine.

I extended an invitation to Tony and Charles that if they are in the Albany area, they should come and visit.  He accepted.

And then it was back in the Blackbird, back on the highway, back to home.

With another trunkful of happy memories filling my mind.