My fellow DA friends,
My memory of the 35th reunion weekend harkens back to our experiences as students. I had taken a path different than others at Deerfield. And the same was on Saturday when I found myself rummaging thru old sweat shirts and hockey jerseys while most of you were hiking or swimming down the river. In search of someone familiar, I thought where would my fellow 77 classmates be? Yes I think I know. As I wandered down thru the gym, past the student center where we used to read Good times, our rebel independent newspaper and of course the administration’s propaganda, Scroll, (this was the 70’s) there I found Townley and Jamie hanging in the pool, and yes I proceeded to do a monster belly flop splash to greet them which takes 35 years in the making to be as magnificently grand as one could imagine. Taking in some needed laps and chat about life, diets, health, school, kids, life at DA, we finally wandered back to Mac house ready for the big tent lobster party. Along the way I heard some were swimming and floating down the river. Darn, I wish I could have done that, oh well next time. As I headed into Mac house I bumped right into Wayne, the first classmate I met on my first day sophomore year. I sounded a little bummed when I heard the river was cold, not too cold, moving, but not too fast, warm enough but not too warm. “Bummer, I wish I would have gone down the river” maybe in 5 years I thought. Wayne immediately picked up the very same kind of moment we played out over and over as young men and said–“hey I’m in if you want to go down to the river” “Awesome”, I said. In that little moment I realized why we all come together every 5 years and why it means so much. For everything we did at Deerfield was about those life moments with a person who knows you and you know them and that is great. A fellow student who opened another chance to experience a moment of friendship which I now understand is what I have been left with from my time at Deerfield. Yes I wanted to swim in that river and yes my path that day took me far from it. That was life. But in that one unbreakable bond of friendship forged years ago, Wayne and I wandered down with a 17 year old heart and mind just to jump into the river one last time. As it turns out, it was the greatest float down the Deerfield river I will remember for a long time. Age plays tricks on us, it can dull the memories but it is clear we can never erase away how much we meant to each other’s lives. It is the core reason of why we come together every 5 years. So we celebrate this magnificent dance every 5 years in what I now understand was the greatest time in our lives and I would never miss it ever.
To each and every one of my classmates in 77, I am honored and humbled to share our past , present and future together. Let us never forget the true lesson of our 35 years since Deerfield and celebrate again!
Stewart
Ps: if I am more eloquent in my response than what you may have expected, perhaps I am just trying to impress upon you all that even a B- student can actually achieve greatness in life. It just takes 35 years to figure it out.
Stewart Day Class of 1977