by Stephanie Fellenstein
Hudson Monthly editor
A college campus in springtime is full of promise. Summer months loom brightly down the road.
I spent 2 1/2 days on the University of Dayton campus for the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop.
I felt like I was back in college. Days centered on me. Heading out in shorts in the definitely chilly, but sunny, spring air just because it was the first time in months the temperature actually rose above 50.
The college newspaper, paper thin, but toiled over into the wee hours of the morning by future journalists, was sitting on window sills and ledges around campus.
College kids. My peers.
That's when it hit me. These kids did not consider me a contemporary. They were not going to ask me to play a pickup game of frisbee on the quad or head to the local bar for a night of partying. I had crossed over that line between footloose-and-fancy-free college kid to responsible, zip-your-coat-or-you'll-catch-your-death-of-a-cold adult.
How did this happen?
Just recently I told a friend of mine, who was heading to Cancun, that I had loved Cancun when my mom and I vacationed there the summer after my freshman year of college. I described the white, sandy beaches and the vine-choked jungles to her like it was just yesterday. But it wasn't yesterday. It was 18 years ago.
"18 years?!" I said to my college roommate who drove up from Cincinnati to have dinner with me while I was in Dayton. "How can it be 18 years since we met? I'm still hip, right?"
"Sure," she said, with a quirky look on her face that said she was trying to figure out how to tell me that the word "hip" was not actually hip anymore.
To add further fuel to the fire, my beloved alma mater recently sent me a reminder card about my 15-year class reunion.
"Hey, are you going to your reunion this summer?" my much younger, hip, yes hip, cousin asked.
"I'm not sure yet," I replied.
"Well, Jack [her boyfriend who also graduated from my alma mater] will be there for his 5-year reunion so I'll see you there if you go."
"Great," I thought, picturing her sipping wine in a trendy outfit, with her short blond hair fringing stylishly around her face, while I struggled to remember why Kathy, Bob and Frank looked vaguely familiar to me as I hid behind the dessert bar.
How did I not see this coming?
My former roommate and I talked for hours. We sat in the corner booth of a local bar near the UD campus sipping drinks. (OK, so it was Diet Coke.) The sun had long since set and the streets were quiet as we headed back to my hotel. It was just like the good old days when we used to talk until the sun made a new appearance.
"Well," my roommate said, pulling her Honda Pilot, big enough for two booster seats and the accumulated paraphernalia that went along with her two kids, up to the door. "We'll have to do this again soon."
I yawned.
But in my defense, it was already 9:30.
E-mail: sfellenstein@recordpub.com
Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3163