Princeton Reunions: The Second

Tomorrow, Friday, I am going back. Back to the place that infected me with the tendency to knee jerk towards anything garishly orange or, even better, orange and black. Back to Old Nassau. Back for my second Princeton Reunions.

Princeton Reunions are not like other college reunions. Instead of only going back for "big" milestones (5 year, 10 year, etc.), most alumni with the means to go back to campus go back every year. Wikipedia claims that each annual 4-day Reunions celebration brings back "upwards of 20,000 alumni, and at least that many guests".

When I graduated in 2007 and I was explaining to my parents what to expect during the P-rade, the highlight of each Reunions weekend, words failed. I could not seem to make them understand the size of this alumni parade. "Oh yeah," they said, unimpressed. "Penn had an alumni parade too." It was only after they witnessed first-hand the 5-hour long, 20,000 person flow of orange and black that their awe was conveyed back to me.

The P-rade kicks off with the oldest visiting alumnus who carries a silver cane, and proceeds with each following class joining all the way down to the senior class teetering drunkenly on the very brink of graduation. Here's a photo of the oldest returning alum, class of 1925, leading the 2006 P-rade with cane in hand and waving to subsequent classes applauding as they sip beer and line the main thoroughfare to watch the procession.




Each class proudly sports its own Reunions jacket, a gaudy thing of orange and black tackiness that would otherwise be banished outside of Fitz-Randolph gates. You are out of place, however, if you show up to the P-rade wearing anything BUT those oh-so-eye-pleasing Halloween colors. Reunions jackets are sometimes relatively benign (relatively being the key word), such as the simple stripes to the left, or the slightly more understated mottled jackets of the class of 1960, seen here looking like quite a dapper group of fellows...




...Especially when classes celebrating those "big" reunions we talked about decide to show up in costume, like these spring chickens celebrating their 50th.





Thankfully, before your 5th year reunion you are only required to wear a much less formal, much less gaudy beer jacket, designed by one of your classmates. Here I am pictured with classmates at one of our 2007 graduation events, showing off our new (mostly black) beer jackets that we will wear through our first 5 reunions. Near the end of the P-rade when the youngest alumni join the march, the lawns lining Elm Drive become a sea of beer jackets:

(photo by eszter)

Okay, you say. Great. You have a giant parade. Now what happens for the rest of the four days? Well, contrary to popular belief Ivy Leaguers do, in fact, drink. Princeton Reunions has long been held as the single-largest order of Budweiser of the year throughout the country. Each night, the warm campus pulses with Reunions parties that thrive until 2 am, with white tents littering the campus's larger lawns, and beer cups and bodies littering the dancefloors and green areas around those white tents. Beer flows unendingly (and if it does end, new kegs are quickly tapped), bands reverberate under white tent tops, feet stop on wooden dance floors, old friends hug for the first time in a year or more.



And then it ends, quiet as the start was boisterous. Waking lazily to Sunday morning brunch at their former eating clubs, the sleepy alumni will say their farewells and retreat to cabs or cars or the Dinky train that will take them, hungover, back to New York City, where they will probably try to catch up on lost sleep in time for the impending and dreaded workweek, and they will slumber with visions of Tigers and next year's Reunions dancing in their heads.

I haven't been to Princeton since last Reunions, so I'm looking forward to going back and seeing my classmates and friends, especially my fellow '07ers, seen below at the end of the P-rade during our graduation year (thanks to EG for the picture). With that said, I leave you this weekend for New Jersey Transit, Budweiser beer, a lot of orange and black, and one beer and P-rade induced cheer:

HIP HIP
RAH RAH RAH
TIGER TIGER TIGER
SIS SIS SIS
BOOM BOOM BOOM
BAH
OH-SEVEN! OH-SEVEN! OH-SEVEN!

(all photos above, except when mine or where noted, by Joe Shlabotnik