THE REUNION

June 5–9, 1983

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T.S. ELIOT

CLASS OF 1910

***

They began to gather on Sunday, June 5. Advance reservations indicated that over six hundred members of The Class would be coming from every state and even Europe and Asia. Registration was at the Freshman Union, where they had all embarked on their great journey twenty-nine years earlier.

But who were these strange people — balding, bespectacled, overweight, and shy? How had they come to usurp the ball reserved for the firebrands of The Class of ’58? The only clue was the badges that they wore on their lapels.

Paradoxically, most of them were more frightened at the prospect of their return to Harvard than when they first arrived as undergraduates. For now there was one conspicuous item missing from their spiritual luggage — unbounded faith in their potential.

They were no longer like astronauts striding to the launch pad full of hope, ready to fly to the moon and beyond. They were most of them weary travelers whose horizons ended at the office parking lot.

And for all their glittering achievements, their triumphal entries into the pages of Who’s Who , they knew they had suffered the irreparable loss of what was once their most precious gift. Their youth.

The Class of ’58 had come home as grown-ups. The great expectations that once had burned in them had been replaced by ghosts of old ambitions.

The secret word was compromise. Nobody said it outright, but they all could sense it. Yet somehow it was comforting to see that everyone had aged. They had weathered all the storms of harsh reality, and here were seeking shelter in a place where they had once believed no rain could ever fall on them.

They were gazing at one another. Some too timid to approach the old acquaintances they thought they recognized — but were too far away to read the badges.

And yet how different from the looks they had exchanged while waiting on line for that first dinner in their freshman year. They all were adversaries then. Independent, trusting only in themselves. The Union air had been suffused with feelings of omniscience and infallibility.

But now they treated one another with a new affection. There were no hierarchies. They were meeting for the first time as fellow human beings. For they were not there to worship. The Class had gathered to commune.

Gradually they could allow themselves to laugh. And talk of football games and college pranks. The good old times when Ike was in the White House and all was right with the world.

The reunion had begun.

***

The week officially began with a Thanksgiving and Memorial Service at nine-thirty the next morning.

Considering how few had attended the Baccalaureate Service at graduation in 1958, it was remarkable how many were present in Mem. Church that balmy morning of June 6, 1983.

They all had studied the immense red book, the glorious compendium of their collective achievements. But the entries that had captured everyone’s imagination were the dead. Eminence is no protection in a highway accident. Cancer does not hold a Harvard graduate in awe.

Perhaps they knew that this was the reason they had really come. To be with classmates once again at the midway point in their lives. And though the service was to honor the departed, in so doing, they were all acknowledging their own mortality.

The church was filled only with members of The Class, their families, and — their survivors. Classmates led the service.

At one point the Reverend Lyle Guttu ’58 offered some brief comments.

He emphasized that fear of death is universal. But what lies beneath that fear is the terror of insignificance . Of not being remembered, not counting.

“That is why we are gathered, for ourselves, as much as any other. That is why this building is here, to honor the sacrifice of Harvard sons who died in struggles to defend the dignity of man.”

He then commented on some of the deaths. One classmate had drowned while attempting to save a child. Another had been executed for leading an abortive revolt against the oppressive regime in Haiti. Yet another gave up his life to save more than a hundred hostages.

And finally he stated, “Quiet heroism or youthful idealism, or both? What do we know? That life without heroism and idealism is not worth living — or that either can be fatal? We are here to remember our classmates. They are not nameless. They are known. They were ours, and shall ever be.”

At this point, another member of The Class rose to read the names of the departed.

As he finished, the bells of Memorial Church began to toll. Once for every name. The dull knelling profoundly shook those standing in the vast white-paneled church.

Forty years of vibrant life reduced to the reverberation of a single bell.

We will all come to this.