SAC 30th Year Reunion

The window let in the gloam of a cloud-covered sky, and the cool damp air of springtime as I rolled over in bed on this lazy Sunday morning.

To go or not to go?

It was 9:00. The reunion was at 10:30. My body felt the usual morning-after stiffness that follows a blitz of Saturday basketball.

I'd prepaid the $8 for the ISU Student Alumni Council 30th reunion breakfast buffet at the new ISU Alumni Center. I live ten minutes from it (unlike, for example, the person who flew in from California).

Let's go.

The introverted part of me has never been entirely comfortable in socially mingling crowds. It first struck me when I tagged along with a couple of college freshmen buddies to a fraternity party. I was out of there within fifteen minutes! This could become a post all about the various professional, family and other gatherings that I've passed over through the decades since... suffice to say that the backwards blessing of it all is a heightened awareness of others' discomfort that serves me fabulously well as a host/facilitator.

Introverts are energy-drained, rather than energy-fed, by reunions. So they rationalize: What's the lasting benefit? What lasting relationships can be kindled or re-kindled in so short a time? The larger plan of fate has whisked us apart like beach sand as part of a grand purpose. What would it serve for me to sit at a table with a group of strangers, or friends fairly engrossed in their stronger memories with each other?

Well, that was just useless thinking. This was a great time!

Jenny (Niedbalski) Chambers gave me one of those king-sized hugs of hers and we caught up on a dozen years of missed time. There were photos aplenty that stirred up warm, hilarious and forgotten memories. There were Karen Brown, Bambi Burgard, Trudy Gross, Scott and Lisa Swan, Laura Harris and Jennifer (Knight) Risher looking just as well as they did back then. And there was advisor Barb Todd, with that same energy and heartfelt speech that drew the introverted and extroverted alike into SAC as a big happy family. The philosophy she shared today - to be a mom who worked, rather than a working mom - was a spot-on explanation of SAC's wild success. Even for us "middle children" wallflowers who didn't realize it, she was Mom away from home. And those moments of inspiration are the sparkles of reflected sunshine that happen when two grains of sand on the beach come together in a moment of random yet beautiful destiny. In this case, a moment captured by a million photos snapped by dutiful spouses that are coming soon to a Facebook page near you!