Graduation Weekend at Beloit College

May 21, 2015

I arrived at Beloit College 489 months ago. Ms. J got there 453 months ago. Cate Rubin showed up only 45 months ago. Alas, we all said goodbye to Beloit and Beloit College last weekend, as Cate graduated.

The town has stepped up its game, big time. Downtown Beloit offers good—no, not good for Beloit; really good—restaurants and bars. The riverfront is beautiful, and the city looks alive, not like it did when I lived there in the 1970s.

Beloit College has improved greatly, too. In my day it was a good, small liberal arts college. It still is, but good in 2015 is better than good in 1978. The grunge of the 70s doesn’t work anymore, and Beloit has changed with the times. While I do not have pictures of the town, I do have several campus pictures. (When I see “Most Beautiful Campus” lists and Beloit College does not appear, I get cranky!)

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Chapin Hall, my home in 1974-5

Chapin Hall, my home in 1974-5

Alpha Sigma Tau, aka Cate's "House"

Alpha Sigma Tau, aka Cate’s “House”

Center for the Sciences aka Cate's other house

Center for the Sciences aka Cate’s other house

Emerson Hall, my home in 1977

Emerson Hall, my home in 1977

As the close ties bonds with Beloit College come to an end, I want to make my pitch for a liberal arts education. There’s value in being an educated person, even if that may not be evident when someone majors in philosophy or classics. Jokes about barista jobs aside, well-educated people win out, almost always. Grad school may be necessary to get the specific knowledge a field requires, but the base pays off. (And please, can we all stop knocking English majors? Does our society really want to give up on the written word?)

Saturday night we hosted a graduation party at Aunt Pam and Uncle Craig’s place. It’ll surprise no regular reader that the party involved pizza. Lots of fun. Alas, the best laid plans don’t always work out. A couple of months ago I powered through several batches of dough and froze it. I packed it in an insulated zipper bag before I left on my trek, kept it iced, and refrigerated it promptly after arriving in Illinois. On Saturday morning, taking the dough out of the Ziploc bags, I saw red. Literally! I couldn’t identify the source of the spots, but I thought E. Coli or listeria, and that was that with the dough. Frozen whole wheat dough is handy, and it drew raves, although this pizzaioli was not happy with the results. Here are some pics:

Chef

Chef

Apps

Apps

Pizza (1 of 12)

Pizza (1 of 12)

Aunt Pam's Cake

Aunt Pam’s Cake

Of course, we weren’t in Wisconsin for buildings, or for pizza. For Ms. J and me, and for our mothers and sisters, Sunday was one fine day. (We lost Uncles Irwin and Craig to possible rain and a leaking fridge, respectively.) The skies threatened us all morning, and throughout the two hour ceremony. (During the following four-plus hours of packing up, the sun was out and the humidity ever-present.)

Middle College

Middle College

AST grads

AST grads (The dude is a “sweetheart”)

Almost there

Almost there

There

There

Done!

Done!

[Note: This graduation process does involve a road trip. More on that in another post, soon.]

 

 

 

 

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