Camp Alfred

Alfred, New York is a tiny little place that's brought me lots of big, important things.


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A great education.

Lifelong friends.


Lots of laughs.

Here's where Robin and I lived when we were on campus. It's also where I got married 23 years ago on one of the hottest 4th of July weekends on record surrounded by family and friends. I wish there was such thing as blogging back then...we threw one hell of a party.

Last week Robin, Janet, Chris, Judi and I went back to Alfred for our 25th reunion.

And there we all were, dancing to Rock Lobster and The Cramps in front of Alumni Hall surrounded by all the glowing luminarias on the quad. Time warp!

It struck me that almost all of us had met and/or married our husbands at Alfred. Which is kind of funny because none of us actually had getting married on our agendas. I mean, it took Robin almost 20 years to marry Ian and make an honest man out of him.

Since Alfred we've all scattered and traveled all over the world. But we always come back to reconnect with our Alfred roots and with each other.

We go to Alex's bar. We walk all over. We buy jewelry and pottery from local artists. We get wined and dined by university relations. We stay up too late. We talk until we're hoarse.

And Robin's laugh echoes down the valley.

This time Judi proved to her daughter that you could actually lay down in the middle of Main Street and NOT get run over by a car. And Chris and I ran the Reunion 5K. Once again Chris won fastest in our age group. Me? I was just glad to finish!

The highlight this year was that Robin's old boyfriend (class of '81) made an unannounced appearance - coming all the way from Texas just for the chance to see her. It was really flattering for her and good to catch up with him but, yeah, it got kinda creepy. Let's just say Robin chose the right guy.

I love my amazing friends...and we're so lucky to have this gorgeous little slice of New York country to come home to.

Hey, we even left King Alfred with some souvenirs from our visit.