The Brown University class of 1980 returned to campus on Memorial Day weekend 2010 for 3 days of parties, events, parties and more parties. I took an interminable Greyhound bus from NYC - scheduled for 4 hours, but took 6. Then I hopped the (new since 1980) trolley bus to College Hill.

Festivities kicked off at the Alumni Cocktail Party on Friday evening, where I reunited with Mike Guzy, Nate Flynn, Barbara Weiss, Rick Brissendon, Betsy Berg, Jonathan Schwartz.

Then the Campus Dance where I found Kris Solberg, whom I had not seen since a Halloween party at MillHouse. I stopped by the table for the class of '50 and congratulated them. They asked, "For what?" and I told them, "For being here - I'm only halfway there!"

 Then I met up with Acting Music Dept. Chairman "Shep" Shapiro (who still looks like Lou Reed but better) and enjoyed the fine Jagolinzer Concert including a performance on a theramin-like Saxoblown by Alex Kruckman class of 2010.

I took a lot of photos of the campus for old time's sake. In case you are wondering the Store 24 is now Tedeschi, and Sod(ality) House keeps its official name of King House and is some kind of Christian fraternity.

I missed the company of some of my best friends who did not come to the Reunion, but I found their Freshman Photos in the lounge of Diman House where the class of 1980 stayed.

I stopped by the video booth and told the story of being arrested for breaking into the John Hay library via a tunnel we entered through a manhole in the Green. Professor John Rowe Workman was my character witness, and told the Dean that I was a scholar and would not vandalize books, so I was sentenced to probation instead of suspension. I looked for the manhole cover but I think an event tent was covering it. The video team later gave me a $10 gift certificate for the bookstore where I purchased a tshirt, sweat pants, a shooter shot glass, and postcards to send to friends who were not there. The cap and button were "favors" given to the class of 1980 by the Reunion Committee.

Sunday I decided to grab a hero at Louis Family Restaurant,  but it was closed for the holiday. When someone failed to make dinner in our cooking coop at Sod House, the answer was often "dinner at Louis" usually accompanied by a couple of pitchers of draft Narragansett beer.

The only sour note during the weekend was a certain clique that still dislikes me after 30 years, although I do not remember why. Perhaps it was my excessive drug use, my loud music, my strange clothes and friends, my Punk Rock Rude Boy attitude (it was the late 70s after all, and we were exploring the limits of civilization, fueled by the music of the Ramones, The Clash and Sex Pistols). Maybe it was my public performances, which always seemed to end in destruction, from burning my Jimi Hendrix record in the post office, to our senior play which only ran one night because the entire set was destroyed by crowbars and mayhem (and Shep must have freaked because I borrowed his amps speakers and tape machines, but I insisted that they not be smashed), or perhaps it was the Ratf*cker party at Glenn Baker's house, where my band, the National Guard, played while Dan Sales projected porno movies everywhere and the decor was replete with dead rats? Or perhaps it was our senior film Wozzeck in which I played the lead and composed the score, and urinated in a punch bowl... Ok, maybe it was not your cuppa then, but still hostile after 30 years? Cmon. I have learned, that when someone is intent on trying to make me (and usually others) miserable, after the encounter I thank God I am not that person, who must be so unhappy and self-loathing inside.

I thought it was funny that there were written instructions posted in the bathrooms at Diman House and at Au Bon Pain on Thayer Street - guess it's all part of an "Ivy league Education."

See more Brown University 30th Reunion 2010 Photos

See Brown University Commencement 2010 Photos

See Brown University Commencement 2010 Blog