Thursday, October 23, 2008

A Homecoming Prediction From 35 Years Ago


Neil Skene was editor of THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER our senior year.

He's coming up back for Reunion and I am looking forward to seeing him on Friday. I'm pretty sure we haven't seen or talked to each other since we graduated in the spring of 1973, so that's pretty exciting.

On May 8, 1973, a little less than three weeks before we graduated, Neil wrote an article in the paper which amounted to kind of a prediction about our Class' future Reunions. It's turned out to pretty accurate. Here's what he wrote and my updates follow:

"....When Alumni and Development invites the Class of '73 back for its reunion, new dorms will probably be flung up.

(you gotta see the new freshman Commons over at Peabody).

New streets and sidewalks will lead us to new buildings.

(how about those two pontoon walking bridges over 21st Avenue and you won't believe all the other new buildings, especially around the Medical Center, as well as the Student Life and Student Rec Centers).

And maybe even liberals, if there are any left, will have short hair."

(I guess we'll need to wait for the November 4 election to figure out if any liberals are still surviving. Meanwhile for what it's worth, I'm getting a hair cut Friday morning).

In light of Neil's prediction, here's something kind of hard to believe.

This barber shop is still open and operating on the ground level of the Oxford House, which functioned as a dorm while we were students (my wife, Betty Lee, lived there junior year).

What are the odds that a place like this would still be there 35 years after we left, especially given all the other massive changes in that part of campus? But when you think about it, why not? If the folks operating this place could survive a time when nobody wanted to cut their hair, such as the years we were in school ...why not now?

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