Happy Trails Until 2013--

I'm composing this now from home, confident that a few die-hard party animals are still partying hearty at 8:15 a.m. in Nashville and reasonably secure that Vandy will keep up its incredible spate of victories this season and beat Duke. (It does make one wonder if we might be living in Alpha and Omega times--when he who has been last shall be first [in the SEC East, that is]--well, what else can one say but: GO 'DORES!!!!)

This is my valediction to y'all for this Reunion season's blogfest. It's been kind of weirdly fun for me to share these strange little musings from our collective past with you all; I sincerely hope you all enjoyed reading them as much as I did writing them. In all fairness, I gotta say that I learned a lot last night at our Class of '83 Party: I learned that, yes, Frank Cooper DOES have back hair (and that's OK as I do, too, Frank...back we go to that TMI thing...). I learned that Prof. Lachs' book sales jumped by at least one copy of his book, as one of you apparently agreed with my blog entry on "In Love With Life" and bought it. (I'm glad to know you thought it was a good read, too; friends, I wouldn't steer you wrong! There's just too many of you to try to evade for the rest of my life if I did, for starters.)

I learned that I most cruelly and wrongly, but lacking the requisite malice aforethought, attributed pet-tarantula ownership to Mike Castellon, when in fact the spider was owned by his roomie. If there is a tort of libel of tarantula title, I suppose I'm now an offender. I learned that at least one of my old freshman buddies in Lupton Two is well on his way to being the next Louis Rukeyser, and a lot of us got to get reacquainted with and mend fences with old friends and acquaintances. Of course, the nature of a party like last night can confine one to the kind of "13 questions" drill that compacts an enormous range of time and life experiences--but, that didn't necessarily have to make the reconnecting any less real or enjoyable now, did it? I also learned that a lot of us really look amazingly well preserved after 25 years of life's vicissitudes. And I got away from it all without hearing at least one chorus of "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" being sung by a group of my musically-inclined (or is that challenged?) buddies...darn!

To our Reunion Class planners, Ralph, Stuart, Julie, Martha and Laurie: thanks to all of you for helping coordinate a fantastic job (and for someone, somehow, being on the right side of the Almighty to get the rain to stop well in advance of the party). To all of you, may your next five years be as prosperous, as enjoyable, and as full of life as you can possibly make them to be. Let's all try to savor those moments of wisdom, humor, impact, and meaning when we can catch them during our otherwise hectic days of working, coping, and dealing with all of those things that seem to keep coming at each of us non-stop.

Cheers for now; hope to see you again five years hence; and for now, Vaya con Dios. Regards-- Nick