POSTSCRIPT

postscript MAY/JUNE 2021 / DONNA MOFFLY

“He stood outside their door and made a momentous decision. Rather than wake everyone up, he’d just undress in the hall.” OF REUNION RECOLLECTIONS

So now it’s June, the month that launches 1,000 reunions. Except last year. And this year, too, unless they’re somehow staged on Zoom. But that’s not the same as getting together with friends and making memories—the crazy, fun kind.

Like my forty-fifth at Wellesley. I was staying in a single on the fourth floor of a dorm turned co-ed for the occasion and on my way to the loo in the middle of the night got locked out of my room in my nightgown. But, thank God, with my glasses. All doors were shut; no help at hand. So I rode the elevator down to the first floor, rummaged around the unmanned bell desk and came up with a bunch of keys— meanwhile checking out the living room for what I might sleep on and use for cover. But I got back to my room unobserved and—open sesame!—one of the keys worked.

Dorms were never my favorite accommodations. Jack and I took the kids to Princeton to march in many reunion P-rades, usually staying with friends just off campus. But once we ended up on the top floor of Little Hall. The room was filthy, the bathrooms in the basement, and we got no sleep because aluminum beer kegs were being rolled down those three flights of iron stairs in some sort of bizarre undergrad contest. Never again, said I.

Meanwhile, the wife of a classmate of Jack’s from Greenwich had insisted on staying at a hotel. Smart lady. On Saturday night she and their three young daughters retired well ahead of her husband who partied on… and on. Finally back at the hotel, he stood in the corridor outside their door and made a momentous decision. Rather than wake everyone up, he’d just undress in the hall. But for all his consideration, his wife heard the commotion, opened the door and quickly pulled the near-naked “damned fool” inside.

One Princeton reunion was enough for our Darien friend Peter Ward. His first. And he was only there long enough to pick up his P-rade uniform—a T-shirt reading “Fabulous First” on the front and “1947” on the back. After a few pops, Peter and classmate Joe Gordon decided it would be much more fun to drive up to La Rue, a respectable New York nightclub for the college set. (He’d find out years later that the father of a girl he often took there would have La Rue send him a copy of their bills to see how much she was drinking.)

Just as Peter and Joe arrived, so did somebody driving a “flying car”—an airplane with its wings folded back converted to a car. The doorman left his gold-roped post and everyone in the restaurant rushed out to gawk, allowing the boys to slip inside in their P-rade attire. Eventually, of course, they were thrown out. It was Peter’s first and last reunion.

Once Jack and I bought a large rockinghorse tiger in the Princeton Museum shop and had the awkward and somewhat embarrassing job of carrying him across campus to the car. On the way, a young woman full of beer gave our tiger a big kiss that left a bright red lipstick mark on his muzzle forever. Anyway, “Plimpton” is now safely stabled under the piano for our grandchildren to ride.

Then there was the year I went back to Cleveland for my Hathaway Brown fortieth and fell to chatting with a fellow I’d dated in high school. We exchanged tales of children (his three, my two), businesses (his cars, my magazines), et al. Until he finally observed: “Gee, Donna, you turned out a lot better than I thought you would!” Hmmm.

Well, as long as old friends get together, there will be stories.

the lexington collection