Autumn Memories: Saint Olaf College

Um... read no further unless you're an Ole :)  This really has no general application or interest.  But if you're lucky enough to have experienced the magic of "The Hill," here's to reminiscing.  And if you happen to have stumbled on this while researching college for yourself, PLEASE do not overlook St. Olaf College.  It's not for everybody, but for those for whom it is, it's pure magic.

They call it "The Hill" because the 3,000-student campus sits atop a lofty hill in Minnesota, overlooking the quaint, historic college town of Northfield.  Breathing in elevated views of the Minnesotan countryside from buildings such as this one, the Camelot parallel won't escape you.  And if you're anything like me, it will basically be the culmination of all your princess fantasies and about 90% of your Halloween costumes.

Can I get a Rapunzel up here?

Even gorgeous in the dead of winter.  Check out this article on "Why a Winter's Morning at St. Olaf is Like A Vacation."  Great pics too.

Minnesotan countryside.

Northfield:  Adorable.  (a bit sleepy).

Olaf in the fall.  Brimming with excitement and happy reunions.

Olaf in the winter.  Too gorgeous to really care about the cold.

But that's just the backdrop, really.  The true magic at Olaf is held in its people.  First and foremost, in the lifelong friends you'll undoubtedly make, and in the warm, friendly acquaintances you'll see in your dorms and classrooms.  St. Olaf is a globally renowned music school, it's the #1 small liberal arts college for study abroad programs, it's a dry campus, and it's one of a few remaining colleges that maintain their Christian affiliations (in this case, ELCA:  very liberal).  Plus, it's in Minnesota and it's proudly slightly Norwegian.  It thus attracts a certain personality type, and while it takes some legitimate flack for being "insular," about 75% of students study abroad before graduating.  I spent an amazing year in France without paying anything over St. Olaf's admission (back then, a decidedly more impressive feat).  For those who have the means, the J-term (just January) programs like Theater in London, Art in Italy, Religion in Germany, whatever-the-excuse-to-go-to-Paris-is, and so many other programs all around the world are incredible opportunities.  My best college friend was in Turkey on 9/11 and Morocco shortly thereafter, on "Term in the Middle East."

Wholesome fun on a dry campus.

As a result of its strengths and its limitations - it is, after all, a fairly small campus in a small town, and you are required to live in dorms or honor houses on campus all four years - there are distinct characteristics that make up the typical Ole.  They tend to be what is for me (and many others) a perfect combination of traditional and wholesome, but open-minded and creative.  Yup, they're somewhat sheltered, and at times it can feel like a prep school.  But they are what they are and it is what it is, and most Ole alums hold their campus memories very near and very dear to their hearts.

*Sigh.*  I could go on and on about the myriad of other things that make St. Olaf College my favorite place on Earth, and that cause my heart to ache with longing whenever I view pictures of campus and whenever autumn rolls around.  The food (#1 in the nation), the fantastic professors, and the small class sizes.  The favorite Northfield hangouts (Hogan Brother's, baby), the exciting trips to the Twin Cities, and the traditional Norwegian Christmas Festival (complete with lefsa and lutefisk at the Caf).  And let's not forget The Cookie House across the river at Carleton College.  We owe many fun weekend evenings to a little old lady (Candace "Dacie" Moses, 1883-1981) who left her house to Carleton College on the condition that it always be open to students and always stocked with cookie baking supplies.  But I have to stop here, because my main purpose for this blog entry is to capture my own most treasured Olaf memories in writing, as they grow dimmer with each passing year.  So:

Before I even got there...

• Road tripping to Minnesota with my dad, who wasn't going to let me overlook the small liberal arts schools he and my mom knew would be best for me.  I'd been set on going to UW-Madison until he dragged me all over Minnesota and waited patiently for me to attend classes and campus events.  We had the best times exploring St. Paul and staying at The Archer House (The Tavern) in Northfield - imagining his own grandparents on a date there as Carleton students in the 1910s.  It means THE WORLD to me that my father did this for me and these are some of my all-time most treasured memories.  I can't hear Sarah McLachlan songs without being taken right back.  
• My weekend stay at St. Olaf as a "prospee."  The girls of Hoyme Hall were SO nice and SO friendly, they dressed me up as Pippy Longstocking for their Halloween party.   Literally every single person I met was kind and unpretentious.  A stark contrast from high school, and one I could not resist.
• Returning to St. Olaf after a night out in Northfield and looking up at all the lighted dorms and buildings up on the hill.  Feeling SO jealous and wistful that my prospee host got to return to this magical place every single night.  At the time, I still felt I couldn't actually go to St. Olaf because it wasn't as academically competitive as Carleton or Macalester, my other top schools.  Attending St. Olaf taught me a lesson to which I attribute an enormous amount of my life's happiness:  Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.
• Keeping the St. Olaf viewbook on my dresser by my bed and staring at it many, many times as a high school senior, unable to believe I was lucky enough to have it in my future. 
• Imagining meeting a boy there.  Every Camelot needs a Prince Charming!  This boy would be smart and sweet and chivalrous, respectful and a person of great character.  I think I just described my husband :)

Those magical four years...

Leaf Pile Night.  Olaf magic captured on film.

Freshman year dorm with Hillary.

Freshman year dorm 10 years later, with Matt and Dear Husband.

• Driving to Olaf with my parents and brother, and all of us crying when "Butterfly Kisses" came on the radio.
• Week I:  Fun activities, awesome new people, a feeling of adventure I'll never capture again. Social nervousness but social acceptance.  Awesome food.  Falling asleep every night feeling like one of the luckiest people on the planet, excited to wake up to another amazing day.  Even without air conditioning AND with occasionally ice-cold showers. 
• Finding and bonding intensely with my best-friend-to-be, Hillary Rhodes.  Laughing hysterically over the "gum letter" and just about everything else.  "Freezing time."  "We thought it was soundproof.  We thought that was the point."
• Bonding with our partners in crime, Matt Wieland and Husband-To-Be, over lengthy debates at Goodbye Blue Monday coffee shop and leaf pile night.  Dorkily calling ourselves "the foursome" forevermore.  Chanhassen dinner theater. 
• Heading off to meals as a group, walking down the sidewalk from Ellingson Hall.  That's the quintessential.  
• Developing a big crush on Now-Husband.  BIG.
• Sleepovers with Hillary in her dorm when her roommate was out of town.  Garth Brooks.  Friends in Low Places.  A-oo-oo!
• Weekends at Hillary's aunt and uncle's mansion in the historic Summit Hill area of St. Paul.  Breakfast at Cafe Latte.  Truffles from Just Truffles.  Her uncle is Garrison Keillor... we were living out The Minnesotan Experience.
• Trips to the Twin Cities, dorm corridor "screws" to the Mall of America. 
• Chapel-naps. 
• The new student center.  The luxury was fun, but we all missed meals and memories at the old one.
• Falling in love with Now-Husband.  
• The Cross Country "Screws" in the fall.  Feeling SO lucky to be my Now-Husband's date.  Mongolian barbecue.  Haagen-Dazs ice cream. 
• Oh wait.  Were academics involved?  My favorite classes:  Speaking French with Mather, Religion with Schuurman, History seminars with Fitzgerald.  The entire French department.  Medieval History with Carrington.  
• Morning runs with Hillary and/or Now-Husband.  
• Chapel services, brunch.  Ole rolls at The Ole Store.
• Due to the popularity of this post, I have had to remove my husband's first name.  I apologize for the awkward writing.  He doesn't want this link to come up when his patients google him.  

Sadly, this list and these descriptions can't quite capture the *feeling* of being in those moments and living that part of my life.  As the years roll by, my Olaf memories fade and I'm caught between trying desperately to keep them fresh, and then also trying not to think too much on them lest the potency of the memories dilute with usage.  So I've written it as best I can, and posted these photos.  Now, I must lock this blog entry away and avoid hearing Googoo Dolls "Slide" or Eagle Eye Cherry's "Save Tonight" on the radio - or ANY Sarah McLachlan (especially Possession) - rationing out these souvenirs as best I can.

Mellby (the nerdy dorm):  Sophomore year dorm with Hillary.

Thorson:  Senior year dorm.

Six years after graduation, on Old Main Hill.

"This is it."

 Ever since I realized I'd one day be "an adult," I've spent a lot of time wondering and dreaming about that day.  I was never that into being a teenager - didn't like parties or cliques - and I wasn't exactly living up my twenties in law school, legal internships, and 3 1/2 years of practicing law.  Instead, I've sort of spent my life putting one foot in front of the other, doing all the things I "should" do... the things I "should" do to get back to my own childhood, this time as the adult.

I had a really great childhood.  I'm not at all trying to brag, just to explain what I experienced and what I want to give my children.  My parents had and still have a fantastic marriage.  My mom used to say that she never fit in with the other neighborhood moms in part because they were always complaining about their husbands and she had nothing to complain about.  "Your father is a good man," she'd say.  My mom's loud, Chicago-Italian laugh used to mortify me but my dad said it made his heart twinkle.  My mom was a fantastic mom - a little unconventional as a staunch feminist, but her work at a battered women's shelter and her demanding of respect from me, my brother, and everyone else she ever met lent her an enormous amount of credibility in my young eyes and gave me the backbone I'm proud (and glad) to have today.

A young couple

Helping Daddy clean the car.

Could Daddy have an ear infection?

My mom mandated family sit-down dinners - every night, unless you were eating over at a friend's house.  Everybody had to come to the table, and if you tarried after she called "time to eat!!" ... well, you didn't tarry.  She did the cooking but everyone else did the dishes and cleaning.  Television was generally off, as a rule, though I think we made a few exceptions for Roseanne.

Family vacations were annual.  We mainly continued my dad's family's three-generation tradition of going "Up North" every summer and renting a cabin in Minocqua, Wisconsin.  We did Disney twice, went skiing in Colorado once, and went to Cancun once too.  Nothing crazy, but my brother and I knew we were lucky to get to see these places.  Now I know I'm lucky to have the memories.

"Up North"

Cute baby brother

Dad took us sledding and built many snow forts... and taught us how to ride bikes and play chess... helped us with our math homework all the time... did karate with us for 6+ years... took me all over the state to weekend tournaments... took me to Minnesota a few times to visit colleges... and still takes me out to lunch when he can.

So throughout adolescence and early adulthood I've been trying to "get back to" that.  Maybe you have too.  I want to be the mom in a good marriage, with family meals every night, making summertime and the Christmas season times of happiness and wonder for my children.  Most of the time, it feels impossibly far off.  We live in a 2-bedroom apartment and will probably be here until we're 36... as a family of 4 or 5.  We have one car and we owe my parents a ton of money for it.  My husband is rarely home in time to have a family dinner (or any dinner), and he often goes weeks only seeing our son awake a few times, and only for about 20 minutes.

So I don't feel like an adult yet... I feel like a grad student, 27 years old max, with a baby.  The traditional markers of "adulthood" - or at least the ones I saw in my parents - haven't yet been attained.  But this morning, as I sat on the porch drinking iced coffee with my beautiful baby boy playing at my feet, it occurred to me:  This is it.  I'm the mom, finally, I'm the adult.  And I'm doing everything in my power to give my son the same great childhood I had with my family.  Earlier that morning we had read books, gone on a long walk on the bike trail, and stopped at the park to swing and crawl.  Yesterday I roasted a bunch of broccoli for him and he and I had a "Mommy-Son Date" with Kelly and Henry, ice cream in Davis Square.  We then went back to their place and splashed around in their plastic pool, and had a burrito dinner with Luke and little Miriam.  We had a great time.  We're having a great time, and a great life.

Not all the pieces are in place yet... but I believe they one day will be.  And until then I need to start realizing:  "This is it."  And... it's good.  My son is happy and loving life... even if it's sad to watch him look around for his Daddy and so often realize Daddy isn't home.  Daddy will be home more... someday.  And as Daddy says, "The ironic thing is that by the time this is all over, we'll be looking back at these years and wishing we were back here, young again, with our lives in front of us."  Yes, we will be.  So this IS it... and it isn't bad.  Time to enjoy it more... summer's here.

P.S.  Credit Kelly with the iced coffee.  Very easy to make:  Simply brew up some high-quality coffee extra strong, add and dissolve sugar while it's hot (and a few drops of vanilla or almond extract, if you feel like it) and chill.  Serve with ice and add cream... top with whipped cream, if you're me.  Enjoy on a hot summer's day.