GRoK This!

College dorm reunion

I went to school at UC Irvine from 1982-1986. During that time, I stayed in the dorms. Well, I stayed in one dorm (Bahia) for the entire four years. It was interesting meeting new people each year, and being able to see a pattern on how things worked. For example, When students first got there, it was party time. Then the first mid-terms came, and it got quieter after that when they saw their scores.

Two sets of friendships came from that time. The first was from my first two years there(82-83,83-84), and then the second set was from my last two years (84-85,85-86). Back in the 90's, the second set had some reunions. Now, with Facebook around, and also armed with the Alumni directory, I decided to hunt for as many dorm-mates as possible. I managed to get a hold of a couple of them from the first set (James and Leanne), and they knew some of the others, etc. We agreed to have a reunion on Jan 24, so I set one up at Karl Strauss at South Coast Plaza. I dragged my wife to it, telling her that she'd get to know me even better and understand what those days were like. It's always a little dicey asking your spouse to a reunion, because there's a good chance they're going to get bored.

I recognized everyone when they came in. Everyone looked just about the same (maybe minus some hair) as they did when I saw them 25 years ago. Mark Essayian and his wife, Colleen and Amir Bacchus, Rick Sanzimier, Jeff Claproth, Neil Schmidt, James Ni, and Tim Mengle were all there. The rest couldn't make it but really wanted to be there. The night was filled, of course, with us all catching up on what we were doing now and then swapping stories from the past. I brought along a few pictures, which helped ("Oh, yeah, I remember him/her!"). All in all, a great night. I had thought that we would be fine with another reunion about six months from now, but it seems everyone else wanted something earlier than that. So, I'm going to set up either a Google group or a Facebook group (or both). We'll continue trying to find other dorm-mates and trying to pick a time/place where more of us can meet.

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Posted at 08:17AM Jan 26, 2009 by Gary Kephart in General  |