The Alumni Magazine That Won’t Let Go

It follows me everywhere

Older woman with new graduate — RDNE Stock Project on

The alumni magazine from my father’s college sat on our coffee table, renewed every quarter. I read that magazine as a kid for marvelous tales of kind and wise professors, sports teams that won their divisions, and alumni who were charting new territory in their chosen fields.

I didn’t understand marketing.

I wanted to go to that college for many reasons that made sense, but I wanted to live the life in the college pictures.

Of course, that life didn’t exist. The world my father lived in didn’t exist, either, as he was among those post-World War II students ready to learn as much as they could and join the great American march towards progress. He talked about his college years as the Wonder Years, and I guess they were, after WWII. Quonset huts provided housing for married students, and the college went on a building spree.

I was a student when we were blocking the president’s office, protesting campus decisions, the Vietnam War, and the draft.

I have lived many places and been many things in the fifty years since graduating, but the alumni magazine has always found me. I can’t even attribute its persistence in my life to my generational connection, as my father died 25 years ago.