Cornell Reunion: Big Red-miniscences — Looking Back & Ahead

“Memories are like moonbeams - we do with them what we will.” - Kevin Spacey

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Remembering is an art... sprinkled with science. You know ... brains, neurons and all that cognitive stuff. But memory is a fickle thing. We spend years trying to forget our high school sweetheart, then decades trying to remember. First we erase, then pluck images, melodies, voices and loves from the past. They fade and re-emerge like fairy dust. Remember that old Irving Berlin song lyric, “You promised that you’d forget me not/But you forgot to remember?”

Remember to Write. Remember the Alamo. Try to Remember. And of course, Remembrance of Things Past. Proust is all about memory. Remember? He’s the one who dunked sweet madeleine biscuits in his tea. Bien sur, a sensory experience extraordinaire. A split second of a taste...a childhood memory that’s everlasting.

OOH-LA-LA to BA-NA-NA to SHANGRI-LA

Oui, Marcel may have his madeleines, but I’ve got my banana bread. Looking back to the Summer of ‘69, studying sculpture at Cornell with Friedel Dzubas (just call me Mia Michelangelo), I remember vividly the morning I poured a strong cup of java to jolt me into my intensive language labs in Morrill Hall... the same morning I tasted the most amazing banana bread in my entire life. So amazing that months later I phoned Cornell Dining to inquire. What arrived in the mail was a hand-written recipe in bulk measurements, calculated for hundreds of Summer Session students: 20 lbs. of butter, 30 pounds of bananas, 35 quarts of vanilla, etc. etc....or so I remember. So amazing that for the next 40 years, every sliver of banana bread was my Proustian madeleine moment, transporting me back to my 15-year old self on the sweet grassy lawn in front of Clara Dickson Hall, chewing that first sweet melt-in-your mouth morsel of banana bread, just before setting out to mold some clay.

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UNITED WE REFLECT

If Proust is all about memory, so are reunions. Reunion: from the Latin reunire ‘unite,’ from re (back again) and union (coming together). In July alone we saw the 57th annual Halvorson Family Reunion; the Ransom Everglades Alumni Reunion; the Egg Harbor, Wisconsin family reunions; and the Camp Chen-A-Wanda Reunion.

And then there’s the unsurpassed Cornell Reunion. Which undeniably digs up college memories of first kisses, all nighters, philosophical conversations in coffeehouses, intellectual salons, soirées and Scotch-sippings in professors’ homes, huge lecture halls, intimate seminars; new BFFs, besties, term papers, finals, and heartbreak.

CONNECTING THE CORNELL DOTS

Look, I’m the Queen of Reminiscence. So, with thoughts of campus moonbeams and memories of Purity Ice Cream milkshakes swirling in my head; after months of conference calls and emails from the Notable Class of 1974, I decided to go for the gusto. I mean what better way to evoke the past and reconnect the infinite dots of taste, time, and memory, and get those senses buzzing, than to trek 250 miles upstate to my alma mater? With an advance line-up featuring composer Steve Reich and Science Guy Bill Nye, who could resist the temptation?

After all, 1974 was a Notable year all by itself — the same year Mikhail Baryshnikov defected to the United States; both Liposuction and the Post-it were invented; and the Arecibo message was sent up to star cluster M13 for outer space to decipher.

What’s more, 1974’s #1 hits were all about reminiscing, namely Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle and Barbra Streisand’s The Way we Were, strewn with misty watercolor memories.

I mean if Monsieur Marcel could take a promenade down memory lane, why not moi? I figured if he was in search of lost time and cake crumbs, I could spend a lost weekend savoring scoops of Kahlua Fudge, Big Red Bear Tracks and Ezra’s Morning Cup ice cream at the Dairy Bar.

SILENT SIPPING OR SOUND TRIPPING

Basically we have two choices about reconnecting: (1) quiet reminiscing; or (2) jovial celebrating with others.

Sure, I love my silent nostalgia, my poetic solitude, my zen space, sitting on the floor of my thimble-sized Greenwich Village studio, working solo mio. My nights holed up in Turkish coffee bars, nibbling dolma grape leaves, invoking the muse while silently sipping espresso, blocking out millennials with my cornflower blue Beats headphones, invoking the ascetic lifestyle philosophy of Kafka (”you need not leave your room...simply wait, become quiet..still..and solitary).”

To quote my renowned, soft-spoken poetry professor —and Society for the Humanities Cornell Faculty Fellow— the one and only A. R. (Archie Randolph) Ammons: Only Silence perfects silence.

SAGE & GLEE-FUL GATHERINGS

On the other hand, we can nod to group nostalgia and celebrate with others. So I decided to opt for #2 — gathering together. I for one cannot erase the sound memories of my exhilarating undergraduate years, from clock tower chimes to the mellifluous harmonies of Sage Chapel choir; from the glorious Glee Club and Chorus stylings under Conductors Thomas Sokol and Robert Isaacs...

... to the a cappella croonings of The Sherwoods and The Hangovers on the steps of Goldwyn Smith; from the guitar strummings emerging from Anabel Taylor Hall (Phil Shapiro’s live Sunday night broadcast of WVBR’s Bound for Glory) to the giddy freshman laughter of my North Campus #9 suite-mates.

Looking back, teary nostalgia and togetherness have a historic tradition with Cornellians. Anna Botsford Comstock (the first female professor at Cornell, head of Nature Studies) was rooming in a house on East Seneca Street, boarding across the street. She wrote poignantly, one dreary November afternoon, about the emotional camaraderie with her fellow students in 1874, exactly 100 years prior to my graduation. The Brazilians actually have a word for this phenomenon of longing — a blend of melancholy and bliss: soldade.

“One day... obliged to take two unexpected entrance examinations, I was low in my mind and looked longingly into the depths of the Cascadilla gorge, as I crossed the bridge. A letter from my mother was at my plate at the dinner table and I gave it a hasty glance. She sensed my homesickness and was sympathetic. It was too much for me; I felt the tears coming and fled to the other room, ashamed of my lack of self-control, but I soon recovered and came back to the table. Lo and behold! All the Brazilian youths were weeping, tears rolling over their beards into the soup; they were just homesick lads, although they looked like men. I ‘d never seen men weep, and I began to laugh. They laughed too and we ate our dinner in sympathetic sadness and cheer.“

GETTING IT STRAIGHT: THE BALLAD OF SALAD

Fast forward a century, to those nostalgic Remembrance of Things Past images stamped in my brain: sitting uninterrupted for hours at the Willard Straight reading room; and savoring every macrobiotic morsel of Moosewood Restaurant’s butternut squash. Oh, and don’t forget those crisp garden greens (ironically, from Remembrance Farms in Trumansburg, New York) which were oh-so-way ahead of the kale/quinoa trend.

SUBLIME PARADIGM OF TIME

Yup. Heading to my Cornell reunion on a non-reunion year was like falling into Remembrance of Things Campus Past. Time was as frozen as custard. The bell tower clock hands seemed locked in place at 6:36. The Andrew Dickson White Room nook in Uris Library, where I spent many an hour on Bach and Baudelaire, seemed posed at exactly the same angle perpendicular to the Libe Slope path as I’d left it over four decades ago.

Ah yes, stepping backward was heavenly —a blink-worthy 43 years back (don’t forget, it was a non-reunion year) to my beloved Cornell campus, remembering things past, beaucoup and beyond Proust’s madeleine, as Seals & Crofts’ Summer Breeze wafted through my nostalgic brain.

GOOEY LOUIE & SUI — OY!!

Yup. Proust was right. One bite of a meatball pizza sub from Louie’s Lunch...or a Hot Truck Sui (short for Suicidegarlic French bread piled with sauce, mushrooms, sausage, pepperoni and mozzarella) and I was back in my tiny freshman North Campus dorm, re-setting the needle on my Kenwood turntable over and over, listening to Joni Mitchell until Clouds’ illusions blur the lines of Ithaca and Chelsea Mornings.

OPTIMISM OF ORCHARDS

“Yesterday I staked off the ground on the hill for an orchard...I want to get 1,000 apple trees a-growing.”

- Ezra Cornell

I guess Ezra was a timeless soulmate of sorts. Certainly regarding apples. I always loved my pippins and winesaps — especially on those spectacular October campus mornings. One loop around the Ag Quad and my mind leapt back to my first radio series in 1970 — “Apples of New York State” — which I passionately broadcast weekly via Cornell Extension Services (http://cce.cornell.edu/program/agriculture). Over the decades, Cornell’s evolved exponentially in the apple-growing biz. There’s so much more to learn about agricultural techniques and apple orchards now ... https://hort.cals.cornell.edu/about/facilities/cornell-orchards and it sure would have made Ezra proud, dare I say it, to the core.

COURTYARD QUANDARY

Just remember — memory triggers go beyond a bite of an Empire apple or a taste of moist banana bread, into the world of smells. Taking my first steps into the courtyard of Balch Hall, the exact fragrance of those mysterious bushes entered my nostrils and I was immersed in 1971, 1972, 1973.... Note: After a series of inconclusive queries to the Botanic Gardens, Horticulture and Grounds Department, I found the Sherlockian guru of Plant Science, via sleuth Matt Hayes: one Ed Cobb, Botanist and Researcher. He trekked over to the site in question and identified the source of the sweet magical aroma as the Linden Tree — Tilia Cordata species. Eureka!

True, taste and smell certainly send you back. Ditto with music ...the first few notes of a song melody sends you right back to the room, the furniture, the circumstance and the date you first heard it.

Every holiday season when A Charlie Brown Christmas returns, I’m back in my elegant Balch lobby, where some charming stranger first played it. (I spent the next three frantic weeks in the winter of 1971 taping posters on trees all over campus seeking that MYSTERY GUY...the record was out of print and impossible to find).

Yup. Music is the forever madeleine. Hearing “every sha la la la ...every wo-o-wo-o,” I’m in my dorm once more, spinning the 45 of Karen Carpenter‘s Yesterday Once More...seriously, who wouldn’t be looking back and longing?

The minute I hear the opening chords of You’ve Got a Friend, I am reliving the night my first Cornell crush played me the entire side of Carole King’s just released Tapestry album. The emotions of reunion connect our dreamy dots so we never feel “So Far Away” from our delicious memories. I will forever be grateful to DB for his tender musical introduction of a lifetime.

LAB OF O — SOUNDS OF ORNITHOLOGY

And then there are the birdsongs.

Sapsucker. Sounds like a new tea to pair with oolong or lapsang souchong. Guess again. It’s the location of the Ornithology Lab, founded in 1915. In fact it was the original bird sanctuary — and I’m not talking politics. At my first Reunion Weekend 2017 event in Mann library, Dr. Mike Webster’s ”Sound & Feather” media talk — listening to sounds of the ruffed grouse compressing air with his wings, and hearing thumping on its chest — I was transported back to my early walks in Sapsucker Woods.

Guess birdsongs, like banana bread, are sparks to unlock our memories. Simultaneously Paul Newman’s daughter was flying her peregrine falcon, a breed which was almost extinct. Now we’ve got spectrograms to measure sounds of wood thrush; heron and owl nest-cams (http://cams.allaboutbirds.org/) and Macaulay Library for sound recording and identification https://www.macaulaylibrary.org/about/use-media/. Listen to Wesley Lanyon’s captivating dusky-capped flycatcher audio (Myiarchus tuberculifer) from 1972 in Peru at https://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/18969. And Oliver Komar’s enchanting Dusky-capped Flycatcher (below).

GOLDEN OLDIES

Ironically, the Macaulay Library is an archive of nostalgia. Artist Maya Lin created a multimedia experience as a memorial to the planet. The digital project pays homage to “the living things we have lost ... the species we can still save.” The Macauley sampler includes haunting sounds of loons and humpback whales, as well as the echoing call of the extinct Golden Toad, a memory from the past. Visitors can submit their own memories of changing landscapes and tributes to lost species. (See https://macaulaylibrary.org/guide/what-is-missing).

Another tribute to nostalgia? The Savage Club of Ithaca — promoting “happiness through music, literature and the arts since 1895.” Even their program exudes joy - it’s written backwards! The private social club was founded by members of the Cornell University Mandolin, Banjo and Glee Club as a charter of the Savage Club of London. Nothing stuffy about it. The uplifting show blends jazz, barbershop, choral, comedy and nostalgic narrative, with musical, literary, vocal hearts of gold.

A SERIES OF FORTUNATE EVENTS

With apologies to Lemony Snicket, on my road to reminiscence, several random incidents occurred that mystified and yet made perfect Cornellian sense. I coined them Cornelli-oincidences.

1. THE WILLY NILLY TILLY FACTOR

Invoking Razzo Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy on the Shortline bus to and from Port Authority, I passed Tillie’s Diner, which swept me back to freshman year, when I played the role of young Tillie in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. Ironically Nell Potts (Paul Newman’s daughter) played that role in the 1972 movie.

Tillie was wide-eyed in wonder of the skies...(”atom, atom, what a beautiful word”), which recalled the heyday of Carl Sagan’s reign at Cornell. We were all agog at the Fuertes Observatory, watching the stars and skies, particularly since Neil Armstrong had just taken one giant leap for mankind, landing on the moon in July, 1969.

2. FELICITY OF SYNCHRONICITY

Trying to recapture the essence of my residential dorm life for three years at Balch Hall, I stood reminiscing outside the locked Victorian ivy-clad residence. At that very moment, an alum walked by and offered to let me in. “What room were you in?” “3234.” “That’s my room,” he stated matter-of-factly, as if coincidence had been invented by Cornell.

3. TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Last reunion, I’d met an awesome alum sitting behind me on that endless Shortline. We laughed for five hours, then lost each other amidst the urban insanity of NYC life. Fast forward three years. Sitting on a bench, awestruck by the Cayuga dusk, I heard a distant voice call out, “Mia Berman!” ... “Ajanda?” Considering this gargantuan campus, what were the odds? It’s the destiny of AD White, Ezra and Cornelliana combined.

SIZING IT UP

Size isn’t everything, but regarding the Cornell campus, it’s huge. Over 2,000 acres, in fact. Not only could you then walk off your last Joe’s Restaurant eggplant parmigiana by strolling from one class to another, but the exuberance level now of my returning comrades seems as consistently high as the hills of Ithaca.

Even the class buttons are doughnut big. “So big,” says Matt Hayes (Program Fitness Coordinator for Athletics and Recreation Services), “that they’re more like shields...so big it’s hard to match your outfit. They make the buttons as large as your Cornell pride.”

LIBE SLOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

Okay, I’m no geometry major. But with apologies to Pythagoras, I felt I was standing at the perfect angle of the perfect hypotenuse of the Libe/Library/lavender triangle....and seriously, nothing much could beat this....not even the moon landing, Bill Nye or Carl Sagan. Walking just behind the statue of Ezra Cornell at the lilac twilight hour, watching the sunset over Cayuga Lake, looking down over Libe Slope? Infinite bliss.

FROM SLOPE TO SCOPE

Nostalgia glides from the intangible to the tangible, from the dreamy fragrance of a flashback to the reality of a manuscript. Climbing down into the depths of Olin Library, I was enmeshed in Carl A. Kroch Library’s Wake the Form exhibit. I was a kid with a kaleidoscope, viewing the historiscope....not to mention the astonishing hair clippings of abolitionist Lydia Maria Child from 1836.

Milton Bradley & Co., The Historiscope: Panorama and History of America, 1868 Wake the Form, Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University, June 8 - October 20, 2017

It’s a blend of then and now, browsing through the documents assembled from Cornell’s contemporary book arts collections: Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, the Fine Arts Library, and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, alongside rare volumes and historical documents, a “dialogue between newer and older forms.”

POOLSIDE REFLECTIONS

And then there’s the magic of Helen Newman, where I‘d drag every night at 11:30pm — after a full day of classes and studying — swim for 15 minutes, then collapse into my North Campus bed, revived, rejuvenated, redeemed.

For Holly Golightly, ”the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany’s.” For me, it’s trekking over to Helen Newman, where savvy lifeguards bent the rules ever-so-slightly so I could take a reminiscent dip just past the “guest hours”...and where smily staff befriend you like their long lost sister.

Big Red — Looking Ahead

In the words of Dr. Louise Banks in the film Arrival (screenwriter Eric Heisserer), “Memory is a strange thing. It doesn’t work like I thought it did.” Like Louise, I’m not sure I believe in beginnings and endings. True, we often bask in looking back with longing, reflecting the past. But we also marvel in the future.

Certainly my treks back to Cornell for reunions always fill me with a melancholy wish to return to my sweet days of youth. But simultaneously they give me infinite hope for what’s to come. Especially when there’s spontaneity. Here’s the evidence:

Never De-NYE; Always Ask WHY

Undaunted by an overflowing Bailey Hall turn-out extravaganza (so big that I couldn’t get in), I sat on some nearby steps with Ariella, a charming high school science enthusiast, watching Bill Nye live stream on my i-phone. The whimsical Nye — a gutsy, poetic/comedic blend of Bob Hope, Professor Backwards, Mr. Rogers, Irwin Corey and Harpo Marx — eloquently expressed his concerns for the world in a rather touching lecture/demo.

I must admit, this young environment-o-phile, Ariella, was exactly what Mr. Science Guy was pinning his hopes on as one of the new problem-solvers-to-come....the out-of-the-box “nerd-elegant” thinkers who will change our world by remaining ever-curious and exploring every ounce of stone-turning possibility to save our gasping world.

Bill Nye’s talk, Everything All at Once, combined the glance backward in time to Carl Sagan and his father’s enlightening exploration of sundials with the look forward to a new generation of scientific discoverers. He reminisced about the fact that one single incident — a class with Professor Carl Sagan — changed his whole life path, and made all the difference.

Speaking to my new young friend—the articulate, curious, intelligent Ariella—I was inspired by her enthusiasm, relentless curiosity, uncanny ability to dialogue with an adult and, in my observation, to leave no stone unturned in seeking a solution to a global mess, and ultimately change the world.

SWOON IN JUNE BY THE FULL MOON

Case in Point #2 - Growing up with a jazz pianist dad and linde-dancing Mom, I soaked in the glorious standards of Gershwin and Cole Porter; so of course the Swing Band tent party is always a topper. This time I got fortunate enough to be swept off my feet by a member of the Class of ’52, one Mr. Henry Ver Valen. (Note: Let it not be forgotten that this was due to the persistent seize-the-moment encouragement of my classmate, Steve Piekaric).

Cornell Reunion Tent Party, June 2017: Swing Dancing with Henry Ver Valen, Cornell Class of ‘52 Videographer: Ajanta Mukharjee

Whether it was another Father’s Day without my Dad, or memories of the big bands from my childhood, or perhaps the pure enchantment of the mix of generations and the joy of dancing...but whatever it was, the mystique of the Full Strawberry Moon illuminating the past seemed to be beaming towards the future....

BUCOLIC, SYMBOLIC FROLIC & POLLACK

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” ― Marcel Proust

BUCOLIC

One of the major criterion in choosing Cornell was the HDT (Henry David Thoreau) factor. The rolling hills of Danby, Trumansburg, and Caroline beckoned to someone raised amidst a crowded urban space. Walking across Beebe Lake‘s Triphammer Falls, I remember stumbling on a local farmer who was selling fresh goat cheese. And then there’s the lush Minns Garden (named after Lua A. Minns, Cornell's first female floriculture faculty), always a godsend. Amidst a horrendous migraine which was about to destroy my reunion weekend, I stopped at my darling bench, listening to the wind and the sounds of silence, save for some extraordinary Steve Reich melodies live streaming through my phone...surrounded by soothing red cockscomb and violet plumes of Salvia.

One of my favorite bucolic memories? A zen-like walk through the Botanic Gardens (formerly known as the Plantations) with Professor Mike Abrams, my freshman year chamber ensemble partner. No matter that he was the renowned editor of the Norton Anthology of Poetry. What mattered was that we trudged around in white trails of snow watching the wind. Observing the trees, I was feeling like Roberta Frost. I’d chosen the road less travelled...and that has indeed made all the difference. My present whole is the sum of all my entire past Cornell parts and memories, and that life experience has made me the Renaissance woman I am today.

SYMBOLIC FROLIC

My artistic spirit and independent thinking springs as much from Cornell as from my open-minded, ‘inter-disciplinary’ parents. My independent out-of-the-box-ness was due in great part to The College Scholar program (and my Advisor — Renaissance Man, painter/printmaker/art historian/mushroom expert H. Peter Kahn), which allowed me the freedom to connect the media dots of Art & Architecture, Agriculture, Law, and Arts & Science Colleges with courses in drawing, communications, art history, broadcasting, and Harmony of the Spheres. And to avoid requirements like Freshman Biology!

Roaming around assorted colleges within the university without the harness of requirements, I even hosted a Renaissance Music radio show at WHCU-FM in downtown Ithaca for college credit.

In sync with that rebel-with-a-cause artistic spirit? The Sherwoods of Cornell — a cappella “renegade choristers” who split from the Cornell Glee Club in 1958, and who make their migratory return each year at Reunion.

POLLACK 14 — THE REAL DEAL

If you expected a nerdy stereotype of an IT expert, forget it. Winning over the 1300-seat amphitheater of Bailey Hall, Martha Pollack, our 14th president, (former provost of University of Michigan) is a perfect example of a multi-disciplinary approach to life — the essence of Cornell. Hoping to combine math and anthropology studies, her interdisciplinary-oriented professor (”when what you want doesn’t exist, just make it up”) suggested a self-designed major. Sound familiar, College Scholars? A linguistics/language processing/cognitive impairment/Artificial Intelligence scholar, she gets it. Asked by moderator Joel Malina, “Why Cornell?” Pollack responds without a blink, “Everybody in this room knows why Cornell. I’m serious.” Cornell “combines world class academics...with a deep instinct for outreach..for making a difference in the world.”

As delightfully comfortable telling jokes (”Cornell red is a lot easier to add to my wardrobe than maize”) as she is serious about the commitment to free speech on campus, President Pollack is the epitome of humanism. Explaining the “discrete math course,” she wryly comments that some students find “structural induction and set theory...a little dry,” quickly adding, “Come on. It’s fascinating stuff.” Ezra & Andrew would be grinning as Pollack described the Let’s Make A Deal/Monte Hall problem she uses to illustrate her humorous approach to education (”getting lessons to stick”). Pollack reminds us that we can reflect on our mentors and our memories, but we must also look forward to new programs, like the increased linking up of Ithaca and New York City resources.

The number 14 is symbolic in poetry (Sonnets are 14 lines); astronomy (the moon takes 14 days waxing and waning); love (Feb. 14 is St. Valentines Day) and French independence. 14 also seems to blend the comic and the cosmic. The 14th Dalai Lama — the spiritual leader of Tibet — has a charming sense of humor. Here’s to our reflective, innovative and witty 14th President Pollack!

SMORGASBORD SCHOLARS from A.nthropology to Z.oology

Cornell is nothing if not a cornucopia of colleges, classes, topics...variety. It’s the ultimate Sagittarian dream — more options here than you could count Schoellkopf field touchdowns. As Ezra wrote so profoundly to colleague A.D. White, in 1868, "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” So it was fitting that my Sheldon Court Reunion 2017 room # was 5-7 — just like Heinz’s 57 varieties.

If you can’t find it here, you can’t find it anywhere. From Biochemical Engineering (Peter Meinig School -www.bme.cornell.edu) to Intro to Political Philosophy (https://www.sce.cornell.edu) to Asian Studies 2245 (Gamelan in Indonesian History & Culture - http://asianstudies.cornell.edu/) to Hospitality Industry Immersion (https://sha.cornell.edu/) to the Neurological Behavior of Warblers (www.allaboutbirds.org) to linguistic syntax and semantics (http://linguistics.cornell.edu/).

I remember zigzagging around campus quadrangles, roaming from Architecture to the Veterinary School of Medicine to Human Ecology to the Hotel School—formerly known as The Statler—where football star Ed Marinaro (Class of ‘72) sliced roast beef and charmed the co-eds) to the Law school to the Engineering School, stopping at Plant Sciences greenhouses, and pondering the length of the falling water at Triphammer Falls.

A.B.C’s of Amiable Baroque Chaps

One distinct and lasting memory from my very first semester at Cornell (once again, thanks to my College Scholar advisor, Peter Kahn) was playing chamber ensembles at the homes of several distinguished professors — Thomas Eisner, Bill Sears, Mike Abrams, and flutist Jerrold (Jerry) Meinwald. It took the intimidation factor right out of my freshman fear base. I was sharing Bach and baklava with these tenured types.

They enjoyed coffee, cake and conversation as much as I did. Always the gentleman (and scholar), Jerry invited me to visit him in his office at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Ecology, where we talked about his trips to Kyoto, his music-making (he actually studied flute with Marcel Moyse), his National Medal of Science award, presented by President Obama; his involvement in the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Sciences, Daedalus, American Philosophical Society, and Cornell’s Faculty Committee on Music. As if that wasn’t enough, he recommends outstanding colleagues — women, if possible — for national and international scientific prizes. Soft-spoken, chemical ecology wizard Meinwald, Goldwin Smith Professor of Chemistry Emeritus since 2005, is as enthusiastic as ever. Guess 90 is the new 50.

FUTURISTIC & HUMANISTIC

True. Big Red inspires Big Red-miniscing, especially for us nostalgic types. From Temple of Zeus readings to Lynah Rink ice skating sessions, I have the lust for looking backward.

The Sherwoods, Alma Mater, Cornell A Cappella Group 1956-1974, Willard Straight, Cornell Reunion, June, 2017 Videographer: Randee Mia Berman, Class of ‘74

But in revisiting the past, old professors, old library carrel haunts, old reference books, and old friends, I encountered the inevitable opposite: new hopes, new mentors, new leaders, new friends...and a look forward.

Like our old Cornell friend Carl Sagan says,