So What's the Allure of Princeton University Reunions?

To those who attended Princeton University, the annual three-day bash known as Reunions is a time to catch up with old friends; to enjoy live bands, lectures, and performances; and to drink unlimited beer while dressed in the traditional orange and black.  (To those outsiders observing it for the first time—specifically, the unlucky spouses of enthusiastic Princeton alumni—it’s an insular weekend during which privileged people cheer for themselves while wearing costumes that would look ridiculous anywhere else.)

I gather that most college reunions are decently sedate, daylong, once-every-five-or-ten-years affairs.  I gather this because of the puzzled expressions I see when I tell people, for example, that I’m going back to my ninth reunion, and yes, I’ll be gone the whole weekend, and yes, I do expect that many of my classmates will return as well, and yes, I know I said “ninth.”

This year, however, is my 10th reunion.  As I walk around the Princeton campus, I picture my younger self occupying the places I know I’ve been.  There I am, locking my bike to the rack outside Patton Hall.  There’s the office in East Pyne where I’m handing in my Linguistics final.  There’s the Engineering Quad, and I’m taking a break from my problem set to get a midnight snack at Hoagie Haven.

Life is different now, as I suppose it should be.  I’m 32, and I have a wife and a baby and a job and a mortgage.  What I don’t have is the wherewithal or energy to justify a midnight hoagie run.  Or the delight that once accompanied the concept of living in a tiny box alongside all of my friends in tiny boxes.  Or an ill-advised goatee.

And no, not everyone returns every year, but some people do.  We return for the reunions of subgroups, for the Molecular Biology Department Barbecue and the Princeton Band’s annual Chinese dinner.  We return to hear the orchestra’s outdoor concert and watch the fireworks explode over Lake Carnegie.  We return to join our friends on a trip to Halo Pub for ice cream, or a tour of the newest architecturally interesting academic building, or to defy our own age-appropriate reunion tent and spend the evening at the 45th reunion because someone heard they had hired a good swing band.

By midnight on Saturday, I’m done.  I’m having a blast, but sunstroke and activity and lack of sleep have taken their toll.  I collapse on a futon and take a 10-minute nap before forcing myself to return to the 10th reunion tent, where an ‘80s cover band is playing, to say good-night to everyone.

The next thing I know, it’s 4:30 a.m., and I’m playing pool at one of the clubs on Prospect Avenue, eating cookies, drenched in sweat, not the least bit tired, feeling for all the world like I’m back in college.

On Monday, I’ll return home with a sore throat and a sleep deficit, having been transported for a weekend to the well-funded, strange, hyperactive bacchanalia of Princeton Reunions, and I’ll change back into a responsible adult.  I’ll put away my beer jacket—the traditional orange-and-black coat specially designed to hide a six-pack—alongside the real coats I wear to work.  I’ll cut off the plastic wristbands that allow entry into the reunion tents, and I’ll get tune of “Old Nassau” unstuck from my head.

That is, at least, until my 11th reunion.

Author, comedian, and molecular biologist Adam Ruben earned his A.B. in Molecular Biology from Princeton in 2001.  He has appeared on the Food Network's "Food Detectives," writes the monthly humor column "Experimental Error" for the journal Science, and recently published his first book, "Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School."