Sorry Emily and Youval. Stop complaining.

Our apologies for failing at updating this thing. Once we got into the swing of alumni college there was much much less free time, but now I've got a few moments so I'll give you a quick recap of the past week.

Last week's program was on the Vietnam War so we had lots of really interesting alumns who were all somehow involved in the war--most of them were actually on the ground. Their stories were incredible and I know I learned a ton about what it was like over there and how they've dealt with the aftermath. Our oldest alumn graduated from W&L Law in 1949 (you can do the math to figure out his age) and our youngest was from the class of 2007 (it was refreshing to have some young blood and a guaranteed fun time at all the cocktail parties). So there was quite a range of ages, but most graduated sometime in the '60s. There were definitely some characters in the group. I wont use their real names but I'll give you the rundown on some of the most odd.

There was Mr. BB who I sat next to at dinner one day. I made the mistake of asking him what kind of work he does (he went to VMI then W&L Law) and he responded with an approximately 33 minute long detailed account of this one case he had worked on (he's an insurance lawyer). I think I understood the first 5 minutes, then kind of zoned out, then was so lost that I only grasped about one out of every 17 words for the rest of the story. I sat there nodding, "okay"ing, "oooh really?"ing, and otherwise making noises and body language insinuating that I was interested in what was going on. He went on through the salad, main course, and half of dessert. When he was finally through we joined back in to listen to the table's conversation. Someone mentioned something about owning a house in New Jersey, and he leaned over and said to me "You know, I had this case in New Jersey once..." and proceeds to tell me about the case. Good Lord. Eventually he leaves (thank goodness) and the man sitting on the other side of me leans over and says "You'll get your purple heart tomorrow morning for sitting and listening to that whole thing". Ohhhh Mr. BM, you're my new favorite. It was pretty funny.

Mr. AC was probably everyone's favorite person to talk about because he was just so odd. He's the kind of person who would repeat stories over and over again but they were not funny or interesting the first time (graduated W&L in 1962. He also had an interesting sense of style. He showed up to a cocktail reception one night wearing some kind of tunic-type wear that screamed "Discuss amongst yourselves from which region/time period this attire springs forth!" After the RAs and '07 grad discussed the matter, we concluded that it was either African Tribal garb, traditional Mexican, or Aztec. We should have asked. I'm sure he would have given us a lengthy description of whence it came, what it represents, from which plant the dye for each color of the fabric comes, and anything ese we asked. He was an interesting fellow to say the least. Nice, nice guy, but a bit of a handful at times.

Mr. BD was everyone's favorite person to talk TO because he was just legit. He was a star football player for W&L, fought with the Marines in Vietnam, was big in the magazine business, drives a beautiful Jag, and now lives in Palm Beach, FL. He was so cool. The RAs would fight with each other for who got to sit at his table for meals. Danielle and I were really into playing matchmaker with him and one of our bosses....they had "struck up a friendship" a few years ago and we were all about rekindling the friendship and allowing it to flower. Gosh, he was so cool.

Stephen loved Mr and Mrs H, they hooked him up with some connections in Africa and South Carolina. I loved Mr. and Mrs. L who were just the nicest most awesome people ever from Charleston, WV. There were also these three musketeers from New York who drank a lot and were really intimidating but hilarious. There was a guy from Little Rock who knew more about baseball than anyone I've ever met. Basically there were lots of really cool people. We were pretty sad to see them go.

This week, there are some other characters. The average age of the participants has increased about 20 years. We have some grads from class of 1950, our youngest is from 1970. They're definitely up there age-wise. Let's just say there are a lot more golf cart passengers this week. Speaking of golf carts, as I was loading people on yesterday to drive them from lunch to the classroom to watch a documentary (When the Moors Ruled in Europe, actually quite interesting, surprisingly enough) I heard this clank. One of the passengers was Mrs. H from St. Louis who drives herself here every year all the way for Missouri and carries her own bags and is remarkably self-sufficient considering her ancient age. After the clank, she squeals and yells to me "Wait! Don't go anywhere, dear! I dropped my cane!"

Ohhhh Alumni College. I'll give you more info on this week's events soon enough but now i'm off to watch Michael Jackson's memorial service and facebook stalk the W&L Class of 2013 by way of their facebook group, then i'll go hang out with some cool kids at the Lexington Office on Youth (I have to get some youth in my life after dealing with 70+ year olds all day). Here's hoping there wont be as much time between posts next time.