Seeing old college friends can take you back

By Trent Modglin

If you’ve been out in the real world longer than you’d care to admit in public, like me, you learn to cherish the time you spend with old college friends. And if you’re a recent graduate, my advice is that you’d better start.

Those pals you used to see every day in class, your dorm or passed out on your front lawn, you now maybe see a few times a year, at a football game and maybe a party or randomly at the store perhaps, if you’re lucky and went to school in the Midwest.

But I went to school at Florida State, so things are different. I don’t casually run into college friends, or even acquaintances, at a Cubs game or a bar or an El stop. Usually, I have to go to a football game, which, believe me, I don’t mind. We organize a big caravan to head up from Tampa and tailgate like we used to, just with nicer cars (well, some of them, not me) and better food (depending on who’s cooking). Sometimes, we’ll plan long weekends together somewhere to try to relive our youth, which we find to be more challenging than it used to be.

But it’s never enough time together, not if you were close with a fair number of people, as I was. A lot of them still hang out regularly, as they live in close proximity to one another. But I’m in Chicago, and a lot of them are in Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, New York or elsewhere. Which is why I have to make the most of the time I do have.

Over Memorial Day weekend, I attended the wedding of my friends Amanda and Austin in Charleston, S.C. Amanda I first met in Spanish class early in my college tenure. Austin was in my fraternity, as well as one of my roommates during my, uh, second senior year (strategic as I was back then).

Instead of a rehearsal dinner, Austin’s parents decided to have an open party at the beach Friday night. Some bar-hopping followed that night, and again the next day, as we explored the historic city of Charleston before the wedding.

All throughout a memorable long weekend, we reminisced, we told inside jokes, we ragged on each other for the same reasons we ragged on each other seven years ago, and for some new reasons as well.

I saw how some of my friends’ kids had grown and developed their own personalities. I saw pictures of other children too young to make the trip.

In the end, you realize a lot has changed since those glory years we still talk so much about. People have packed on a few pounds, some of them a few dozen pounds. The guy who was the biggest slacker in school now is the most successful. People have new jobs or new houses they want to tell you about and you want to hear about. You update each other about other friends who weren’t at the wedding.

Then, upon further review, you realize that a lot is also the same as it was seven years ago. The same people who couldn’t hold their liquor and like to give hugs when they’ve had a few too many are still like that. The friend who you enjoyed debating politics with hasn’t changed his stance on the major issues. The pretty girls are still pretty, and the same jokes are made about the same people.

For all too brief of a time over that holiday weekend, I was able to step back to a time in my life that was incredibly fun, easier and more care-free. To a great time in my life that I knew wouldn’t last forever, but knew even then that I wish it could, somehow, some way.

It may have been less than 48 hours, but the wedding reminded me of the quality friends I have spread across the country and how good of a time we must’ve had way back when to still be able to enjoy each other’s company now and so easily pick up where we left off.

Like I said, you learn to cherish the time you spend with old college friends. And if you’re a recent graduate, my advice is that you’d better start.

Trent Modglin
Publisher
The Real Chicago
Trent@TheRealChicago.org

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