A 40th Reunion Is Missed

One has to pay a price if one wants to accomplish anything of value, and this truism came home to me again over the weekend.

My college class was holding its 40th reunion on the Berea College ridge in Kentucky. How I wanted to attend the gathering. I have not been to a Berea reunion since the 30th reunion.

But given my situation at The Journal, it is virtually impossible for me to get away for three or four days. Besides, there was a murder to check on, at least two traffic fatalities, and Lord knows what else to deal with. Go to Kentucky? Not on your life.

One of my favorite classmates, Dr. David Hunter, of Knoxville, Tenn., recently told me he had been retired for a decade. He had taught at the University of Tennessee. I guess he and my other classmates who made it to Berea last weekend have been more successful than I. I have never worked harder in my life than I have and do in Crewe.

I learned a long time ago around here not to expect compliments, just grief. But Crewe Town Councilman Harrison “Skip” Skipwith stuck his head in The Journal’s front door late last week and thanked us for our high school graduation edition.
I was shocked and very humbled. Thank you, councilman. His words eased my sense of loss in not going to Kentucky for the weekend.

It is a small thing, I suppose, a small thing not getting to attend a major reunion. I can only think of one other more significant Berea reunion and that will be the 50th, and some of us may not be around to make the trip. But as I wrote at the beginning, if you want to do something in life that you think is important, you have to pay the price.

Berea College taught me that lesson 40 and more years ago. Every single member of my class and the larger student body came from the wrong side of the economic and social tracks. We knew Berea, a private college of renown that charges no tuition, was our way to a better life. Most of us gave it our all to make it through the place.

Frankly, I absolutely love Berea and if I had a million dollars, I would will it to the college, so that other needy students would have the chance the class of 1967 had to earn a priceless education.

I think of Berea daily and what it did for me and the rest of us in our generation, just as it had served generations who came before and after us.

There were so many lessons, some of which he probably resented from time to time. But among them was this little notion that there is dignity in all worthy toil. Every one of us had to work in a manual labor job outside the classroom. The same requirement continues to this day.

The mid-1960s were a tough time to be a college student. Many of our peers at other colleges and universities got caught up in the frenzy of the day — drugs, firebombing administration buildings, and the rest of it. Not one of us in that Berea era was destined for the College of Cardinals. But we knew we had to put aside our immediate pleasure for the longer gain. We knew we had to pay the price.

Whatever else may be said of some of us aging Bereans, we have in our various ways paid the price and then some. I feel as though I have paid and do pay the price. Frankly, I would have it no other way. That’s the Berea Way.

(This column was originally published in The Crewe-Burkeville Journal on June 14, 2007.)