Published: July 01, 2008 08:50 am         

Hawthorn Hill

By RICHARD J. deROSA

Reunion

As raindrops slither down the windowpanes of my study, and dark clouds hustle their way eastward, I think about the value of old and enduring friendships. Several days ago, I drove down to my old boarding school for our annual alumni day. It was a good day for many reasons and a sad day for others. On the bright side, it was wonderful to see old friends, several of them upperclassmen who took this lonely and somewhat lost kid under their wing on opening day in 1955, and made him as comfortable as possible in what would become his home away from home for the next six years.

I do not remember much about that first day at all. Yet, almost 50 years later, I can stand on the library terrace with old friends, most of whom I have not seen since, and hear them talk of one day out of so many day so long ago when they took this shy kid under their wing and welcomed him into their community.

We were a community, as my old friend David put it. As I think back on my six years there, and I do often, I realize that as diverse as our backgrounds were, we were a very closely-knit, happily self-contained group. Most of my classmates came from well to do families. I did not. If I experienced any envy at all during those years, it had to do with wishing from time to time I could try on for size and fit some of the illicit activities a few of my more worldly friends engaged in, usually having to do with “town girls.” It appears that when old friends gather, their reminiscences often focus on some of the zanier hijincks that memory seems to preserve rather seamlessly. Teachers are always a source of retrospection. And while we did share stories about individual experiences with a teacher or two, all agreed that for the most part we were blessed with a remarkably capable faculty whose collective devotion and intellectual energy nourish and invigorate each of our lives today, albeit in different ways.

Schools change over time. Cultural shifts and financial exigencies force institutions to reshape themselves not only to, as they say, “keep up with the times,” but to survive. The school I remember, my home for so long on another hill overlooking the magnificent Hudson River, was in many ways quite traditional. We wore coats and ties for classes and, if I remember correctly, suits for Sunday dinner. Sunday church attendance in town was required, although the last several years parental waivers were instituted. That made me quite happy, since I preferred to use that time to take walks, play hockey on an outdoor rink that no longer exists, and hone my tennis game.

An all male school until 1975, the school I remember seemed far more steeped in tradition than appears to be the case today. While our daily lives were regulated by rather strict rules and regulations, they were eminently fair and evenly applied. Our school today is quite progressive, the focus is on the arts, and the atmosphere is much more informal. It is still a very fine institution, but it is not at all the school that I called home.

Perhaps what has bothered us most is the absence of any sense of the past anywhere on campus. The present is very present; the past is painfully absent. Granted, the old Main Building, the grand old centerpiece of the school that housed the administrative offices, dinning room, central commons, dormitory rooms, faculty housing, and main study hall and library, is long gone. Its replacement is an eminently unprepossessing building that one faculty member described quite appropriately as “Adirondack functional.”

It pales in comparison to its predecessor. My point in rambling on about the old Main is that it housed so much of the school’s history.

The commons walls were covered with pictures of past classes and athletic teams. It functioned as a living archive, representing past and present equally. The new building’s drab, virtually empty cinder block walls leave this old goat feeling a sense of loss, even estrangement, that he never dreamed possible.

My classmates and I are gearing up for our 59th reunion in 2011. Despite some of my misgivings about our beloved hill today, the one current that still runs strong is a deep love for the place and a lifelong appreciation for the ways in which it shaped our lives. I doubt if I would have become an English teacher were it not for Mr. Carhart, my English teacher, who taught us to write and think and believe in the life of the mind. He introduced me to Emerson and Thoreau, and those who know me understand the depth and breadth of that influence. He was just one of the many highly educated people who took our minds in tow every day (including Saturday morning!). In that sense, we were blessed. Our friendships were strong, enduring and, as the years have borne out, formative. So, while the school that we attended no longer exists in real time, it exists in our minds and hearts and collective experiences.

As my friend David put it, let’s be realistic. Despite the changes, our old school lives on in our minds and hearts. Nothing can ever change that. I guess it boils down to this: we will continue to cherish this special place just as much. We just have to go about it differently.