My 40th Reunion at Hamilton College

It still feels surreal. Long-buried memories that slumbered for four decades are back. Juvenile instincts to visit this building for food or this building for class supersede my adult-age thoughts.

I’m back in Clinton. Back on the campus of Hamilton College. Back for my 40th anniversary of graduation.

For those not familiar, Hamilton College was formed as Hamilton Oneida Academy in 1787 as an educational institution to bring members of the Six Nations a European education. And founding father Alexander Hamilton invested in the program, hence the school bore his name. In 1812, the school was rechartered as Hamilton College, and remained an institution of higher learning to this day.

The school evolved over time; a second college across the road, Kirkland College, was designed as an all-female institution. A decade later, Kirkland College became part of Hamilton’s full existence. And from there, the school maintained its place in academia. And all that that entailed.

And somehow, they let me matriculate. Yep, the old feelings of inadequacy are creeping in like ivy on the side of a building. Ugh.

So I did what came naturally to me. I did it back in the 80’s, and I did it on Thursday morning. I walked ot the picturesque Root Glen, a forest with streams and bridges and peace. I sat there. I re-examined my emotions. And whatever I thought back in the day … feeling out of place, feeling inadequate, feeling like a Necco Wafer at the communion plate … those surfaced memories went back to the 1980’s. I don’t want them in my life right now.

Next to the Root Glen is the Grant Garden, where an amazing collection of Saunders peonies bloom. The Saunders peonies are named after Professor A.P. Saunders, who created hundreds of hybrids of the humble peony.

Boy oh boy, I bet they’d look incredible if they were shot with my new Petzval-modified Helios 44-2 Russian lens on my Nikon Df camera.

Take a peek.

Ooh. Let’s keep a few of these, you never know when Competition Season might come calling.

And one by one, I ran into members of my class. Great friends from the past. Wonderful people I’ve admired. My friend, Frank Baldwin, for example. See, after graduation, Frank wrote two books, and that led him to his current gig as a screenwriter. In 2023, his script became the film Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World.

And once I saw Frank at one of the college events, I immediately said to him, “Before you say anything to me about what you’ve done with your life and all that, I just wanted to tell you that I absolutely enjoyed the George Foreman movie. I watched it on a plane back from San Antonio to home, and when I had to change flights in Atlanta, I made damn sure to finish watching the film the minute I was back in the sky.”

And from there, the conversations flowed.

Same thing with my classmate Brad Jones, who went from Hamilton to a professorship at the University of Mississippi. Or my classmate Amy Biancolli, who went from college to a long career in writing and journalism. Or my classmate Bjorn Carlsson, who invented several different factory devices for logistics workers in his native Sweden. Or my classmate Mason Ashe, who has a successful career in the world of sports management and contract law. Just being able to remember those nuggets of college memories … and then translate them into a weekend conversation filled with 40 years of catching up … works wonders for the soul.

And the conversations bounced between a thousand topics from the past, and a hundred topics in the present. We reminisced about Vincent’s Pizza and Tiny’s Wings, the two delivery services in Clinton that brought tasty takeout to the Hill. We remembered Don’s Rok and the Holland Patent Bakery and Sangertown Square and all it encompassed.

Saturday was the parade of classes, and here we are, marching around the campus.

And of course, once you get to the end of the parade, you need your obligatory photo with the Alexander Hamilton mascot.

I’m still trying to figure out how Susan Gibbons and Connie Bartels stayed young, and I got old. Can not wrap my mind around the concept.

By the way, the photo at the top of this blog post was also created with that Petzval-modiifed lens. But I didn’t shoot everything on campus with that piece of glass. I also shot some infrared imagery. You know … just because.

After a blazing Saturday afternoon, I took my other Nikon Df out for a shoot. This time, I used my infrared Df for some sweet candy-color shots. First, I took some images of the Alexander Hamilton statue with the InfoChrome filter on the camera.

And if I’m going to shoot any more photos like this, I need to crack out the 720nm filter and go true infrared on this bad boy. Let’s see what Alex looks like at 720 nanometers.

Carissima, bitches.

And of course, when you’re on campus, you have to stop at the campus bookstore and buy some campus swag. Two more T-shirts for me – and a pit stop to the WHCL-FM studios, where I picked up a couple more T-shirts and some patches. Because, yeah.

There was also a trivia competition in the on-campus pub, and although I didn’t bring back my Street Academy trivia team for this, I can tell you that a team called “The Nightowl Radio Show” won third place and claimed a deck of free drink cards.

And at the end of the evening, when we all celebrated one more year and watched as the campus shot off fireworks over the football field … yes, I got some slow-motion shots of the fireworks, because I’m Chuck Miller and I do things like this …

And on the way back to my dorm room, I took a photo of the illuminated and fully restored Chapel tower. The Chapel is the centerpiece of the college, it’s an area of worship and a meeting center and a talisman for students. And the moon was nearby as well.

You know that the longer I stare at this photo … the more likely I’m going to turn it into something in the future. Because, yeah, I will.

Sunday morning. It’s time to go. The Chapel’s going to be filled with classmates for the Sunday service. The college choir, The Buffers, will perform all the classic fight songs and heart songs and boola-boola rah rah sis boom bah melodies from generations of time.

I have to return home early. But I did take a personal moment Sunday morning.

I entered the Chapel before anyone else. Took a couple of photos. Said a silent prayer for my friends to return home safely, and that they might return once more in 2030 when we will all celebrate our 45th reunion. And I said another prayer for those who were called to glory. May their memories always be a blessing, and may thoughts of them always bring us joy.

If Hamilton will have me back … I’ll be back in 2030.

Put that on the calendar, Miller.