Running into old friends

This past Sunday was the Queen's Alumni BBQ at Kingsmere Farm. The Speaker of the House of Commons is a Queen's grad, and he has hosted a summer event for many years now at the Speaker's official residence.

Last year was the first one of these events that I attended. I was never a big Tam wearing, Oil Thigh singing student, and Queen's student culture was ultra Rah-Rah (not at all my style), so I avoided Alumni events for years assuming that would be as annoying as the home-coming weekends I witnessed as an undergrad.

Anyways, last year, for some unknown reason, I decided to attend the event at the speaker's residence. I ran into a couple I had worked at the Queen's radio station (CFRC) with back in the mid 70's. We have crossed paths off and on occasionally since we all graduated, but this was the first time in about 10 years. I got to meet their kids, and catch up. There were speeches and the mandatory bagpiper at the event, but it was amazingly un-rah-rah for a Queen's event.

That experience decided me to try some other local Alumni events. I attended the Alumni bonspiel, the beer-tasting pub night, and although I rarely ever ran into anyone I had been at school with (and I did my degree part time while working full time, so I had a lot of years of people to choose from), I did get to meet some new people and have become a very big fan of the monthly pub nights as an excellent way to get out of the house (working at home can be very isolating). The last pub night I attended was totally great: I met a retired doctor (in his late 80's, who car pools into every pub night with the Alumni Ottawa branch social convener--Kleo) and Andy and I spent most of that evening chatting up a storm. He was beyond charming.

Anyways, back to the BBQ on Sunday. I wandered around looking for familiar faces, introducing myself to people in groups as I wandered, eating my green SnoCone. Almost-ex and his girlfriend were there, and so was Kleo. I chatted all around the event area for a while and finally decided to head back to the car and go home. As I was moving off, I was still glancing around at the various groups of people, just watching groups chatting and kids playing. Then a figure struck me as familiar, so I walked over, not sure if it was who I thought it was. It was. A couple that almost-ex and I had been friends with for some time before they moved away: I had not seen either of them in nearly 20 years. This was the first Ottawa branch Alumni event they had attended, having avoided previous events much for the same reasons I had. It was a total blast running into them, and we caught up until the event wound down. (In the small world category of conversation, it turns out that Carlisle and Marion live in a house about 1 block from almost-ex's house.) I hope to get them out to an Alumni pub night some time.

Speaking of which, there is another one scheduled for this Thursday.

Cha Cheil!