The “10” Year Reunion

Exploring the U of I campus

We had managed to kill three hours at Uni. The next event on the schedule, dinner at Biaggi’s was not scheduled to begin until 7pm. While some folks left to do other things (like visit family), about a dozen of us were left with nothing to do until dinner.

As such, we split up into smaller groups and wandered about campus.

I first tagged along with Clarabelle, Alisa, Meera, Pamela, and Stolarsky. The first stop was the laboratory managed by Clarabelle’s parents.

I was definitely the odd man out of the group in this situation. Clarabelle’s mother knew everyone but me. She was even reasonably up to speed on what was going on in each of the others’ lives. Then of course she would, I remembered. Everyone else’s parents are faculty here, and are, in a sense, in the same workplace, so their life happenings would naturally get passed around from parent to parent. After a long conversation between Clarabelle’s parents and everyone else, we decided to move on and check out the Illini Union.

John and his wife, Sarah, joined us at the Union. After spending some time talking in the food court of the Union, snacking on some Wendy’s fries and a Frosty, we decided to head up to one of the lounge areas of the first floor where a baby grand piano was waiting. We egged Pamela on to play something for us on the piano, and a short concert/sing-a-long session promptly occurred. We may or may not have annoyed some studying students with some Disney songs.

The next stop was Lincoln Hall on the Quad. Back when I was an undergrad here at the U of I, the building was, quite frankly, quite the shithole. The main theater also served as a lecture hall, and had many faded pink chairs with collapsed seat springs, plunking you down on the hard metal seat frame when you sat down. If you were lucky, you had a working desk; if not, you grabbed a 2×3′ piece of wood and placed it across your lap as a makeshift desk. Paint was peeling off the walls, and everything was simply dirty.

When I left the U of I, Lincoln Hall was undergoing a major and expensive restoration effort. We had never seen the finished Lincoln Hall, so we were curious as to how it turned out.

Damn. Lincoln Hall now actually looks like the regal place it should be. The marble floors were cleaned, the pillars cleaned, and the gold (or fake gold) leaf was reapplied to the walls, trim pieces, and ornate carvings. Inside the theater itself, all of the chairs were replaced with new ones with working desks, and the paint on the walls was fantastic muted shade of teal green. Not bad, not bad at all.

John, Sarah, and I somehow go separated from the rest of the group, at which point we decided to strike it out on our own and go explore Green Street, the U of I’s campustown.

We weren’t by ourselves for very long. We soon found Catherine, Elaine, Mutka, Mark, and Grayson at the Game Day Sports store on Green Street.

After browsing the extremely expensive Illini-branded wear for a couple of minutes (college students can afford $80 hoodies?!), we decided to go chill at Cocomero. While some of the party bought frozen yogurt treats, I proceeded to shoot off a roll of film in my Mamiya C220 TLR camera. I had intended to shoot the camera all day, but ended up not shooting anything until that moment, as I spent most of my time talking and reminiscing with people instead of shooting it.

Mark also had a camera on hand, and was also shooting many, many pictures. He was pretty much the unofficial photographer of the reunion. I talked cameras with Mark and Catherine, letting them play with and shoot my TLR. As we gathered on the second floor of Cocomero around a small plastic table, the conversations continued until my father called me and requested that I do a favor for him.

At point, I invited John and Sarah back to my parents’ house to rest and relax before heading out to dinner. I ran my favor for Dad, linking up with John and Sarah at my parents’ house. We whittled away our time with a very intense game of foosball, followed by another intense couple rounds of ping pong.

The three of us headed over to Biaggi’s by 7:30pm. Apparently, it was supposed to have started at 7pm, and we were among the last to arrive. Michael Greenstone and his girlfriend, as well as Andy and Natalie were the only ones to come in after us.

There was another former faculty member present at the dinner that wasn’t present at Uni during lunch, Mrs. Jockush. She was my math teacher back in the day, but is retired now. After finishing the meal, we classmates started jockeying around to talk to each other, and Natalie and I managed to spend some time talking to Mrs. Jockush. Since retirement, she and her husband have been doing a lot of traveling, and have lately discovered the joys of going somewhere warm when the brunt of winter pounds Central Illinois. She lamented that this year, a single month in Hawaii was simply not enough; logically then, she was planning on staying in Hawaii for two months during the next winter. Very good idea, I’d say.

We kept talking with each other until finally, the head waiter came to our tables and notified that they were closing their doors shortly. We were there from 7pm to 11pm, and pretty much the last customers out of the restaurant.

We finished the evening by having one of the waitresses take our group photo with Mark’s camera.

Brunch at Radio Maria

The last event of the reunion weekend was at Radio Maria at 11am. Once again, I was late. I found myself alone at table #2 until some of the other stragglers started showing up. I was eventually joined at my table by Hannah and her boyfriend, Andy and Natalie, and Mutka and her boyfriend. (Mutka was late because she was doing her taxes? I think that’s what the story turned out to be. So responsible.) I was the lone single person at the table.

Talking during brunch at Radio Maria.

Once again, we talked with people at our table as the food was served, and once we finished eating, started shuffling about to talk to as many of the others as we could before we had to depart and say goodbye.

I shot off the rest of another roll of film before we all departed. I hope these shots are good. Three of them are of Terrence and Caterina, of which I hope at least one is good. Another 5-6 shots are of most of the group that remained at the end of brunch. Surely, one of those frames is good too.

After giving everyone a hug, I was in my car and back on the road towards Michigan. I would make it home by 8:30pm Eastern time.

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