Homecoming weekend
Oct. 24th, 2005 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
damontWell, we've returned from Williamsburg and Homecoming. All in all it was a good weekend. I had a good feeling about it from the moment I got out of the car several miles outside the 'Burg, stepped on the dirt and felt *home*. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
montuos took advantage of not being at the football game and posted an entry in her LJ from Swem Library which pretty accurately describes Friday and parts of Saturday, so I won't repeat it here -- just go read her account.
The parade went fairly well; the threat of inclement weather kept one of the two antique firetrucks from coming out, and we didn't quite have enough seating space on the single firetruck, but we'd have been hopelessly spread out over two trucks. We had no trumpets, and I played the tuba parts on my trombone while the other trombonist played the trombone parts. For all our difficulties we still sounded pretty good and got much applause from the audience on the sides of the street.
Between the parade and the pre-game rehearsal, my classmate Debbie showed up and said hello to me and Sallie. She's one of the few who keeps in touch with us, and the only one that group (besides me) who's a regular at Homecoming. It's always nice to see her, which we don't get to do much as she lives in Arizona. I also ran across one of my freshman hallmates while waiting in line for lunch. Bob used to own Bethlehem Bagels, which readers in the Lehigh Valley may remember; he lives out near Reading now.
The Alumni Band's performance at the football game also went pretty well, with many of the Pep Band people standing in as well -- again, we sounded pretty durn good given the lack of prior rehearsal, with no major glitches. And we were our usual raucous selves in the stands; that's what the Band is there for, right? As for the game itself, W&M turned a 16-13 halftime lead into a 44-13 blowout, and scored every time they got the ball. (Except for running out the clock, but that doesn't count.)
After the game a few of us hauled drums back to the music building and then stopped in briefly at the Phi Mu Alpha / Nu Kappa Epsilon reception. Thence it was on to dinner at the Peking-B-Q, where I got my fix of The One True General Tso's Chicken and the various yummy vegetable dishes (most notably the garlic spinach). From there we went back towards campus. I checked the sign-in boards at the Alumni House; among the many classmates whose names I recognized were eight fellow Choir members... yet I didn't see a single one of them at the concert that evening. (Boo, hiss!) I walked back to the old Saint Bede's church (now the Catholic Campus Ministry Chapel) where the Choir concert was to be held, and eventually the alumni were called up to rehearse the "joint" number. There was one alumna who was older than me by a significant margin -- but everyone else was at least ten years younger than me. I was amused to find that our piece for the evening was "Ezekul Saw De Wheel," a song etched forever as the "Chair In The Air Song" in the memories of those who went on Spring Tour 1983. (A long story and only makes sense if you were there...) After the concert we went for ice cream (the traditional apres-concert activity for the Choir) and then headed back to the hotel.
With no activities scheduled and nobody to meet on Sunday, we slept in. After checkout we went to see if Carter's Grove was open. (It wasn't. Is it *ever* going to reopen?) Other things followed in a leisurely fashion: lunch at Second Street (another traditional favorite hangout), a walk around the parking garage and Barksdale Dorm construction sites on campus, a run to Greenhow's Store in the historic area to get soap formontuos, and then we headed home. The trip home was without incident; our only pit stop was in Fredericksburg. I note for the record that the price we paid for gas there was lower than it has been since early August (well before Katrina).
Despite this being a reunion year, I didn't see many of my classmates. This was partially due to me not going to any of the class-specific activities -- not even the class picture, which was scheduled against the Alumni Band Annual Meeting after lunch. Between the band and the choir there's just so much to do on Friday evening and all day Saturday that I don't have time for the class-specific stuff then. However, none of my classmates in the Choir even came to the concert, so my separation from my class isn't all my doing. Perhaps in another five years I'll be willing and able to mingle more with my class, but for now I'm mostly glad that Official Reunion Years are only every fifth year.
Today's kind of a bleh day for me, but that is due to other circumstances and not Homecoming.
montuos took advantage of not being at the football game and posted an entry in her LJ from Swem Library which pretty accurately describes Friday and parts of Saturday, so I won't repeat it here -- just go read her account.The parade went fairly well; the threat of inclement weather kept one of the two antique firetrucks from coming out, and we didn't quite have enough seating space on the single firetruck, but we'd have been hopelessly spread out over two trucks. We had no trumpets, and I played the tuba parts on my trombone while the other trombonist played the trombone parts. For all our difficulties we still sounded pretty good and got much applause from the audience on the sides of the street.
Between the parade and the pre-game rehearsal, my classmate Debbie showed up and said hello to me and Sallie. She's one of the few who keeps in touch with us, and the only one that group (besides me) who's a regular at Homecoming. It's always nice to see her, which we don't get to do much as she lives in Arizona. I also ran across one of my freshman hallmates while waiting in line for lunch. Bob used to own Bethlehem Bagels, which readers in the Lehigh Valley may remember; he lives out near Reading now.
The Alumni Band's performance at the football game also went pretty well, with many of the Pep Band people standing in as well -- again, we sounded pretty durn good given the lack of prior rehearsal, with no major glitches. And we were our usual raucous selves in the stands; that's what the Band is there for, right? As for the game itself, W&M turned a 16-13 halftime lead into a 44-13 blowout, and scored every time they got the ball. (Except for running out the clock, but that doesn't count.)
After the game a few of us hauled drums back to the music building and then stopped in briefly at the Phi Mu Alpha / Nu Kappa Epsilon reception. Thence it was on to dinner at the Peking-B-Q, where I got my fix of The One True General Tso's Chicken and the various yummy vegetable dishes (most notably the garlic spinach). From there we went back towards campus. I checked the sign-in boards at the Alumni House; among the many classmates whose names I recognized were eight fellow Choir members... yet I didn't see a single one of them at the concert that evening. (Boo, hiss!) I walked back to the old Saint Bede's church (now the Catholic Campus Ministry Chapel) where the Choir concert was to be held, and eventually the alumni were called up to rehearse the "joint" number. There was one alumna who was older than me by a significant margin -- but everyone else was at least ten years younger than me. I was amused to find that our piece for the evening was "Ezekul Saw De Wheel," a song etched forever as the "Chair In The Air Song" in the memories of those who went on Spring Tour 1983. (A long story and only makes sense if you were there...) After the concert we went for ice cream (the traditional apres-concert activity for the Choir) and then headed back to the hotel.
With no activities scheduled and nobody to meet on Sunday, we slept in. After checkout we went to see if Carter's Grove was open. (It wasn't. Is it *ever* going to reopen?) Other things followed in a leisurely fashion: lunch at Second Street (another traditional favorite hangout), a walk around the parking garage and Barksdale Dorm construction sites on campus, a run to Greenhow's Store in the historic area to get soap for
montuos, and then we headed home. The trip home was without incident; our only pit stop was in Fredericksburg. I note for the record that the price we paid for gas there was lower than it has been since early August (well before Katrina).Despite this being a reunion year, I didn't see many of my classmates. This was partially due to me not going to any of the class-specific activities -- not even the class picture, which was scheduled against the Alumni Band Annual Meeting after lunch. Between the band and the choir there's just so much to do on Friday evening and all day Saturday that I don't have time for the class-specific stuff then. However, none of my classmates in the Choir even came to the concert, so my separation from my class isn't all my doing. Perhaps in another five years I'll be willing and able to mingle more with my class, but for now I'm mostly glad that Official Reunion Years are only every fifth year.
Today's kind of a bleh day for me, but that is due to other circumstances and not Homecoming.
