Yikes! My 50th college reunion is coming up! (You already know this if you happen to have read a certain post that I wrote a couple of months ago.)

What was the famous class of 1969 like? “All happy graduating classes are alike; each unhappy graduating class is unhappy in its own way.” Isn’t that what Tolstoy said? Can you tell whether my graduating class was happy or not? This word cloud from our Fiftieth Reunion reports probably doesn’t tell you much, since it says a lot more about what my classmates are doing now than it says about our college years. But perhaps the photos at the end of this post, together with the clip from the Harvard Gazette, tell you more. Among those photos, draw whatever conclusions occur to you from the initial pages of our freshman register.

My year is known in some circles for being the class of Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Wallace and Elliott Abrams, John Adams (the composer, not the president) and Robin Batteau. Quick quiz: what do the people have in common in each of these three pairs? Answer is at the end.

So what was the class of 1969 really known for? The two related forces that shaped our years — particularly our senior year — were undoubtedly the war in Vietnam and the student strike of ’69. Although I knew relatively few classmates who actually served in Vietnam, almost everyone participated in the student strike. Normally I don’t like to go to reunions, but this is a special one, and I will want to hear what is said about the war and the student strike. I’ll report back in these pages after the reunion.

5/29/1969 Harvard student being evicted from Hall a 5 A.M. R.O.T.C. protest S.D.S.

Answers to the quiz: Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones were roommates; Chris Wallace and Elliott Abrams are right-wingers; John Adams and Robin Batteau are musicians.

Categories: Life, Teaching & Learning