My senior year college roommates (six of us) were scheduled to meet in Madison, WI for our annual get-together on August 24. Of course, it’s 2020, so lots of things aren’t happening the way we planned them. Instead of an in-person reunion, we had a Zoom reunion today. All six of us were planning to be at the Zoom-union, but two did not join the meeting–not even after we texted a reminder to them. Again, it’s 2020, so who knows what might have prevented them from joining us.

Not surprisingly, we talked about some of our college memories, including the Viet Nam war protests. UW-Madison and UC-Berkley were the two most politically active campuses in the country in the late 1960s. I was actually stopped at the point of a bayonet during one protest, but that’s a different story. (I wasn’t even protesting!) Lin’s, Carol’s, and Barb’s husbands all served in Viet Nam. Lin’s husband was a POW and Barb’s husband was exposed to agent orange and has some serious health problems as a result. We talked about the parallels of that era and the current Black Lives Matter movement.

A happier topic was technology. We graduated in 1969, long before PC’s, internet, cell phones, social media, etc. We did have radio and television (the 1960s weren’t that long ago!), but electric typewriters weren’t common except in businesses. We all agreed we are glad to have the technology to meet in one place today (Zoom) while we are in Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, and Missouri.

It’s been 51 years since we graduated from college, but we’re keeping up with the times and still having fun together.