25th Reunion Speeches - Class of '82

Speech by Dr. Jon Miller - Reflections on the Class of 1982

by Jon Miller

October 2007

When Irene asked, and Dot Doyle told, me to say again what I said more than 25 years ago at your senior dinner, I thought the idea was a bit strange' but when Dot emailed me the text of that long ago talk, I realized that much of what I had said then I had said to the wrong people.  I had given an old folks talk to young people.  Well, perhaps, now that you are just a tad older, I have the opportunity to get it right this time, perhaps some of what I had to say then will be more appropriate now -- now that you've more memories and ha e spent more time and richer time with those memories... like even today.

Reunions are always a strange business.  Attending them, I am always afflicted by double vision.  How many times today have you surely seen a 17 year old as you were talking to some one a bit older?  How many times in the palpable presence of so many good friends has our mind wandered off to think about others who weren't here.  How many times in the nowness of today have you almost, not quite, been then.  Reunions are tricky and so are memories.  This thenness and nowness of memory was part of what I tried to talk about then when I said...

Jamie came to see me some weeks ago and said talk to us and I said about what and she said just share some memories and I said fine.  Well Jamie, I can't -- it's too hard a job.  Oh, the memories are there, almost two years worth -- two full years of long days and lots of people.  But everything my mind brings up my heart strikes dumb in my mouth.  My words don't work.  They're not so rich, so varied, or so full as my memories.  I suspect one would have to have lived the last two years here to understand us and this place -- and if you've lived it, the words really aren't necessary.  They aren't sufficient.

So no memories -- no farewells.  For those of us who stay on -- you the first class, will always be here and we shall constantly glimpse you just rounding a corner or drawing away from a window and we shall hear your voices echo in each answer to every question that we ask from now on.

And for those of you who are leaving -- each to go in you own separate way -- you will take with you bits and pieces of the rest of us, small ghosts of this place.

I quit by saying for all of my eminent colleagues - to each one of you -- thanks for sharing yourself with us

                            and

finally

            Ya'll come back right soon

                                                        you hear.

Well you have come back -- if not soon at least now.  And many of those who are not here this time have visited at other times. Some of you have become regular campus fixtures here, helping us to shape policies and programs.  Others of you are not physically here so often but continue to be part of the NCSSM community in a myriad of specal ways.  Whatever role you have chosen to play or been able to play, you were here once and that, in itself, has made you now and forever part of this family.  Your one time presence tugs at those mystic chords of our individual and corporate memories, making you forever present, forever part of each of us, forever part of all of us.

As we get older, individually and institutionally, we come to realize how important memory is.  What we have done, what we have thought and felt, who we have known sometimes comes very close to being who we are; and our memories often enable us to find ourselves and to know ourselves.  Institutionally, our 25th birthday cele ration led NCSSM two years ago to remember and to explore ways of preserving some of what its individual family members remembered.  Those of us on that first faculty were asked to put together a small slice of "what it was like then." We want to share that with you now.

NCSSM Class of 1982 - 25th Reunion Toast

by Lois Thornburg

October, 2007

I was asked to speak tonight as someone who mingled with many of my classmates, as opposed to just hanging with one small group.

I am honored to be thought of as such but not sure I deserve to be -- as there are so many of you I feel as though I don't know well enough.

I am so happy to see you all tonight.  You really are a wonderful bunch of people, and I thank you for being here.  It is a good thing we do in being here, for we share something wonderful and are each other's time keepers -- each other's memory preservers.

I don't know about the rest of you, but my days of "steel-trap mind" are long gone, and I can find no machine for it like I can for muscle and bone loss.

Still, there are some moments I find unforgettable, such as:

Polly singing "Fire and Rain" a cappella in the Assembly Hall at a talent show -- on pitch; 

Keith Promislow, at another assembly, standing up to confront the creation scientists with the evidence of hydrogen's escape velocity;

Eric Roush boldly using expletives in his campaign speech for class office;

Thomas Gilchrist on piano and vocals, bringing down the house with his rendition of "On Broadway;"

Susan Anderson in the hall of Hill House stopping me to say that John Lennon had died;

Janeen Vanhooke and Herman Goins tearing up any dance floor;

Lisa Sykes singing "Stop! In The Name of Love" while doing all of Diana Ross' moves;

Lisa Sykes hopping across campus with ribbons on her crutches to match her preppy wardrobe;

Robert Lee, deadpan, on stage holding a daisy and reciting lewd German verse;

sweet, adorable Michelle Zimmer having a roomful of shiny, kick-ass Shotokan trophies;

a wet Dr. Miller trying to explain himself before the board of trustees;

nearly all of us posing grandly for photos in Duke Gardens on Senior Skip Day.

You remember things I don't.  I love being reminded.  And I thank those of you who have kindly elevated my phone call to the radio station on that snowy morning to folklore status.  I never knew that act would give me my bit of immortality, but I'll gratefully take it.  --Way better than to have been expelled.  Somehow I graduated never even having been phased.  I want to thank those who protected me.

We are each other's keepers.  As we come together, we bring along those who otherwise cannot be here:  Ellis Smith, Freshteh Golkho, Alex Daughety, Stephanie Locklear, Lisa Sykes Leland.  We keep them with us.

If it seems that to indulge in our memories every few years is to live in the past -- and I've been accused of it -- I suggest that "past, present, and future" as used to partition a human life means next to nothing in time.  One's past is indeed just a piece of one's very brief moment that might as well be seized as often as possible along the way.  By coming together, we continue to seize the day.  Our day.

And now I propose a toast to you, to us... To our time together.