It was the third day of Senior Week, at that instant when Dartmouth pushed aside its staidness for the 10-day tented carnival of Commencement and Reunion, when I ran into a freshman preparing to embark on her first three-month break from the Hanover Plain.
"Have a great summer," I said, generically enough, directing the oral version of a cliche yearbook message to someone I only tangentially knew at Dartmouth and didn't expect to see again -- regularly, at least -- in my post-grad life.
As an aside, I added, "Enjoy your next three years here."
"Don't say that," she said. "The thought that a year's gone by makes me want to cry."
And as such, we parted ways -- my friend lamenting having to leave her friends and small-town home for that other home, the big-city one with parents, summer jobs and streets where you bump into strangers, not everyone you know; and me focusing intently on absorbing my last five days as an undergraduate, surrounded by "last times" and the uncertainty of what life is like beyond that third stoplight on South Main Street, what real people do on Wednesday nights and how I would have reshaped my college experience if I could start over from the very beginning.
After all, there are close to 1,100 Dartmouths in our class -- one for Aarons and another for Zwintscher, and one for everyone in between. At our Dartmouth, a new community coalesced in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. At our Dartmouth, kids with finals in their faces and only the most marginal of dog-paddling abilities marched at midnight three years ago to save their swim team. And more recently, at our Dartmouth, an otherwise complacent student body moved in droves to the polls on Election Day 2004 to change New Hampshire from red country to blue.
But our Dartmouth is also smaller, more personal -- it's the late nights in Novack or the later nights in a packed basement, the trips away from campus camping and those to the Nugget to watch a "new release" with friends, the serene state of flopping around on the Connecticut River and the frenzy of moving out after exams to travel across the world on an off-term. It's editing a thesis for the final time or taking two classes because the mere thought of another could break you. And for my freshman friend, it'll be returning to Hanover for sophomore fall, realizing she's really coming back home.
I guess it's asinine to worry which things I'll recall and which I'll forget about my own Dartmouth. In 50 years, we'll be recounting some of these more trivial stories to our fellow alumni as we step deliberately across the Green. But what we'll all really be thinking about, clad in white shoes and goofy nametags, are all the changes around us -- the new buildings, people and Dartmouth lingo in play. In 2055, it won't be first-floor Berry that will be the center of the universe. (Sorr y, Berry family -- it was inevitable.) Even the physical hub of campus won't be the same, as the new Maynard Street dorms will have long since entered middle age, and what we once considered old during our time at Dartmouth will be viewed by our successors as ancient. What will remain constant, however, is the strength of the bonds formed here -- ties that will be, as the Alma Mater states, a part of us until death.
We won't be able to take ever ything with us as we go past that third stoplight for the first time as Dartmouth alumni. But as we look around today and try our best to hold onto every last second of what it feels like to be a student at the College, we should think back to those memories, our ver y favorites. We'll always have the memories, we'll always have this place, and despite all the talk about leaving and moving on, we'll always have that connection to ever yone who will follow in our footsteps here.
I sincerely hope that for the other members of the Class of 2005, today is a day not just of looking for ward, but also one of looking back. It's great to know where we're going, but even better if we can hold close to our hearts where we've been.
