Do You Know Kimball?
The Wisdom of Youth and the Choices We Make
When you Google the word “nostalgia,” the Interwebs give you this:
A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.
And they provide this useful example: “I was overcome with acute nostalgia for my days in college.”
Oh, Interwebs, how ye know thee.
This past weekend I took a walk, a stroll, a run, and nearly a stumble, down memory lane. Two of my fraternity brothers hatched an idea nearly too audacious to be possible: Get 75 guys, covering nearly a decade of schooling, together again to create a grand reunion. Now, if you knew these guys 25 or 30 years ago, you would be shocked that some are still among the breathing, and you would be quite dubious that they could find their way to an airport, let alone a hotel, and back to campus at an appointed time (many of them couldn’t do that when it was an actual requirement).
But come they did.
I, like many, look back at my college years as some of the best in my life; and, like many, for all of the obvious reasons. When I was in school I was lucky to have a varied group of friends — some in student government and others in the athletic department. But it was my fraternity — the object of much (deserved) derision, the butt of many a joke, the purveyor of dangerous traditions and bad habits — that house and those guys, which were the center of my collegiate universe.
One of the reasons I was drawn to the house that fateful (in a good way) first week of freshman year was that, even to a seventeen year old with absolutely no knowledge of the Greek system, this seemed like a group of guys with whom I could hang. And that was because there was no single “type” of guy. The D-Chi house at the University of Arizona in the fall of 1990 was an island of misfit toys; and I fit right in. This is by no means a denigration of the other fraternities — I had many friends in many of them, good guys one and all. And we, too, wore khakis, white oxfords, red ties, and blue blazers. We were not above any particular fray. We just had the most diverse group of members on campus.
Jocks — we had them; nerds — one lived right next door to me; alcoholics — please!; war veterans — yup; straight arrows — they were there and they survived; we had man-whores, and at least one virgin one who owned it loud and proud.
We had guys from the north, the south, east, and west; Jews and gentiles, atheists, and I believe one Muslim (but no one cared enough to bother asking). There were black guys and white guys, Asians, and albinos (okay, maybe just one albino). We had really cool guys, and — truth be told — some real douchebags. In short, we had it all. But, what we had, more than anything, was brotherhood.
Now, like most of the people reading this, I always considered that concept a bit of a sham; a catchphrase to justify forcing someone to drink obscene amounts of alcohol or smacking them with a paddle or making them clean up dip spit from matted carpeting. And for four years, I pooh-poohed the notion of “brotherhood,” and just called these guys my friends.
But time has a way of providing perspective. And as we moved out into the world and faced real challenges — more than trying to drink 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes — we learned from whence support systems come.
They come from the shared experience of being on your own for the first time and learning to live as an adult when you are far from one. They come from facing the only adversity you have ever known, and having someone there to buy you a beer or just listen to you bitch.
They come from providing emotional support when you come back from Christmas break wearing a torn ribbon, and not a single dude treating you any differently just because your mom passed away. They come from learning that being amongst a group of guys who don’t treat you as special is what makes you — and them — special.
But when you are 18 or 21 and you are studying and partying, and living in the moment, you don’t label that “brotherhood,” because you don’t truly know what that means, and you certainly cannot fathom its absence.
For four years — and a few more in some cases — this group of guys had a place to go each morning to eat breakfast; and a place to return to at lunch to grab a sandwich. They had dinners every Monday, and a yard to party in every Thursday and Saturday night. If you ever needed to just hang out, you just walked through that massive door, across the foyer, and it was like Cheers…every single time.
Anyway, I had forgotten about a lot of that. We graduate, and move on. We make new friends, and find new partners. We are tasked with real responsibilities, and we forget some of those tiny moments that, when added together, make massive memories.
So when I got the email that this reunion was happening, I needed no convincing. I booked my flight, bought my game ticket, and inked the calendar. On Friday night, we all met up. “Old home week” is a trite cliché, but it is one for a reason. Many conversations picked up where we left them in the mid-90’s. Old nicknames rolled off tongues. No prior transgression was forgotten. And, old habits, well they too die hard.
But I didn’t start thinking about the dictionary definition of “nostalgia” until Saturday morning. In an effort to take it all in, I went for a long run around town, ending with a loop of campus. And that is when “it” hit me. Now, I cannot be certain what “it” is or was. “It” was a sensation, an emotion. It was physical; it was instinctive. As I ran past the various buildings wherein my education took hold, as I ran past the student union in which I ate too many bad meals, as I ran past houses where I had partied and houses where former girlfriends lived, as I ran past the “mall” — the center of campus — my heart raced and my mind flooded. Sure, it could have been the miles and the heat, but there was certainly something more.
Jimmy and Robert wrote: “There’s a feeling I get, when I look to the west, and my spirit is crying for leaving.”
As I looked to the west, I did get a little misty; but it was not because I left — that was natural. What I felt was reverie. I thought back to a time that was both so much easier, and yet way more complicated. There was a visceral reminder of a place that held such promise, but held such constraint. On those streets I recalled cocksureness in the face of total ignorance, and not realizing that both were wholly incorrect. I was taken back to moments of great pride and abject fear; and when I look back now, with a quarter century of hindsight, I realize how misguided each of those emotions were.
I peeked into windows and hoped to see faces that I have not seen in decades — will most likely never see again — but hoped, for one fleeting instant, that I would. People pass through our lives, on the street, in our classes, and they knew us when. I wished I knew some of them now.
A nap and a shower, and I headed to the days’ long tailgate my brothers had planned. After a night of debauchery, we were back at it again. Old habits and all.
In that tent, amongst the guys, I felt “it” again. It was not the dictionary definition of “nostalgia,” as I didn’t “long” for the past; I am not even sure I was “wistful.” But it may have been what Erica Hepper, Ph.D., from the University of Surrey School of Psychology describes:
Nostalgia is much more than mere reminiscing; it’s a feeling. Nostalgia is the warm, fuzzy emotion that we feel when we think about fond memories from our past.
That was my nostalgia. But more than nostalgic, what I was was appreciative. I was grateful.
On a warm summer night nearly 30 years ago, a dumb kid not even old enough to vote, had to make a decision about who his friends would be for the next four, and potentially the next forty, years. That is a heady choice.
As I stood under that tent, and as I talked to a buddy who had suffered a heart attack and another who had lost a wife; as I talked to one currently defending our borders and another who had defended our country; as I talked to two actual brothers who have taken over the family business, and another confined to a wheelchair; as I talked to a divorced father who sees his daughter just a few times a year and another who lost contact with his stepchild after a messy split; as I talked to a brother married to his college sweetheart; and as I talked to guys who now live just miles from each other but never have the time to hang out, and others who see each other all the time; as I talked to guys who never grew up; and some who have grown old; as I talked to a guy who survived cancer, and another who survived a horrific car accident; as I talked to guys who have loved and lost, and guys who have lost at love; as I talked to guys who are always up for anything, and guys who still pull the early ripcord; as I talked to guys on the far left and guys on the far right; as I talked to guys I was too scared to talk to then, and guys who were too afraid to talk to me, then; as I talked to guys I still see often, and guys I haven’t seen since freshman year; as I was reminded of who these brothers really were and are, and as I basked in the fall Arizona sun, I was thankful.
Yes, I made a choice that night. Little did I know, at that time, how many life-defining choices were still to come. How many sliding doors would open and close and give direction to my life. Like choosing one law school over another at the last possible moment, and then meeting my wife at the eventual destination. Without that choice, there is no marriage, there are no kids, there is no house, and there is no picket fence.
And it is in front of that picket fence, in front of that house, where — when the crowd dispersed on a cool December day nearly two decades after I made that choice — one fraternity brother stood, waiting to greet me after I buried that wife. He drove more than four hundred miles to be there even though we had spoken not a single word in over fourteen years. He was there to offer a hug — nothing more, as nothing more was needed. And in that moment is when I learned the true meaning of “brotherhood.”
As I begin the college search with my own child, I am reminded how fleeting time is, and how great my time on campus was. Being back there, soaking up the exuberance of youth and the ravages of age, I felt deep emotions, some of which I cannot really articulate.
But this much I know, and I know with certainty:
I made a choice that night so many years ago. I chose wisely.
ITB
