“Remembering the past gives power to the present.” — Fae Myenne Ng
Last weekend, I spent some time in one of my favorite places on the planet: Vermont. I’m not a fan of nature; I don’t camp, ski, or hike, and I loathe winter weather. However, Vermont is still a second home for me despite all that.
I spent four years at Saint Michael’s College in Winooski, Vt. While I earned a bachelor’s in English with a minor in political science, that’s not all the school gave me. I was fortunate enough to make phenomenal friendships, participate in a solid network for my career, and enjoy memories that will last a lifetime.
In 1982, the library on campus was round and resembled a slide projector. The “quad” was only four buildings around an open space, and the dorms were not co-ed. There was a pub on campus, too. Now, the library is square, the quad has a building right in the middle of it, and young men and women live side by side in the dorm where I spent three years sneaking my boyfriend out the side door after curfew. Also, the pub is gone.
I get that places change. New buildings are needed, dorms get run down over time, and apparently, a circular library has terrible acoustics for studying. I tried not to be one of those disgruntled old graduates who whine about all the changes, but I’m not going to lie: losing the Rathskeller, or “The Rat” as we knew it, stings a bit. It wasn’t just about drinking; it was where the dart league held its matches and where students didn’t have to drive to grab a pint with some friends.
At one point, I was walking around campus with a current student and found myself pointing out where everything “didn’t used to be.” How embarrassing; I sounded like one of those grumpy people who can’t deal with change and mutters, “These kids today” and “In my day we…”
While the campus may not have looked as it did when I was a student, it still took me back to the days when my hallmates yelled down the corridor, “KELLEY! PHONE FOR YOU!” I could still hear the carillon bells from the chapel. Even though it’s gone, the circle driveway in front of the student union, where the trike races took place on P-Day weekend, still seemed to hold the energy of a thousand students rooting for their friends speeding around on tiny bikes.
Time stood still for just a minute when I went to one of my favorite parts of campus. While the bench I liked to sit on was gone, they added a “word garden,” which was brilliant. A bunch of stones engraved with words are spread out on the ground, and much like the refrigerator word magnets, students can assemble phrases.
It’s just a tiny piece of the campus, but it means a lot to the students there now, just like the trike races and the pub were important to me. Change is a part of life; nothing can stay the same forever.
The new buildings and spaces aren’t the only differences since I graduated. My whole life is different now. I’m not the same person I was then, which is a good thing. What won’t change is that it will always be where I learned about literature, politics, history, and exactly how long you can leave a keg out in the snow.
Buildings will come and go, but this place, this time that I had there, helped me become someone who could go out and make a life. This part of my past gave me so much of my present; a few building changes aren’t the end of the world.
Brenda Kelley Kim has lived in Marblehead for 50 years, and is an author, freelance writer, and mother of three. Her column appears weekly.