Dear Old Brown |
The happiest moments of youth’s fleeting hours
We’ve past neath the shade of these time-honored walls.
And sorrows as transient as April’s brief showers
Have clouded our lives in Brunonia’s halls.
The final verse of Brown’s Alma Mater song have played in a loop in my head for three days. Brown University. The “Happy Ivy.” The home-away-from-home that captures so many hearts and remains a haven of safety and security for the remainder of our days.
How can one describe the Brunonian experience? The school feels like a warm hug. It feels like eating a pint of your favorite Ben & Jerry’s ice cream with your best friends on a Saturday night while arranging music for your singing group and getting credit at Josiah’s. It feels like frisbee on the Main Green in the crisp, fall air. It feels like dragging the couches out of your dorm on Wriston Quad so you can have prime seats for the Dave Binder Concert on Spring Weekend. It feels like curling up in an oversized chair in the Absolute Quiet Room of the Rock to read a book. It feels like sitting on a friend’s shoulders at an Arch Sing in Wayland Arch so you can wave at your friends singing. It feels like that first satisfying bite into a falafel from Eastside Pockets as you saunter down Thayer St. at the end of a full day.
Truly, sorrows as transient as April’s brief showers clouded our lives........