The Whiffenpoof Centennial in New Haven came and went this weekend, but I know about 650+ people that are more or less walking on air today, including me.
Truth be told, I was kind of a Yale rah-rah back in the day, with singing groups,
the Yale Banner,
Yale Political Union, and other activities filling the time between classes---and sometimes supplanting the time I should have been profiting from an unparalleled education opportunity.
A. and I, walking through the libraries on Saturday afternoon, bemoaned the "education is wasted on the young" theme that I often feel when I visit my alma mater. I s'pose many college graduates like me feel the same---if only we could repeat those years, knowing what we know now. But we can't...and most of us won't, except perhaps through continuing education opportunities.
Anyway, this is not about learning, this is about
poofing it up with my fellow groupies all weekend long, from rehearsals on Friday afternoon through a 5 hour Friday night concert and the gala Saturday evening banquet and sing-a-thons going in any spare alcove and corridor all weekend long.
What a privilege to have been part of the second half of the first 100 years of Whiffenpoofery, and, as we saluted the Whiffs of 2010---the first of the group's Second Century---I did get a lump in my throat.
Most of the weekend, though, was in the company of my classmates, and honestly I laughed, smiled, and roared until my cheeks hurt. Two dozen songs, a dozen speeches, no drinks, but two cigars later, I am back home in NYC. Still feeling honored that I was selected to be a part
of this over 30 years ago and grateful for thirteen other very special guys who shepherded me then and have kept me (mostly) in line since.
Jeff said it best in an email to each of us at the end of the weekend: "It is like touching ground to see you, irreplaceably yourselves, and to feel so immediately the contribution of each part to the whole, musically and in every other way."
Baa, baa, baahhh......
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