The Peter Pan of Academia

I recently enjoyed, for the fourth time, the alumni weekend festivities at my alma mater. There are several fellow alum at my work place and as I was very excited to begin that particular weekend celebration, I expected them to reciprocate. To my surprise, every one of the mostly older alumni were not planning on heading back to campus. As I pondered this finding, a theory began to formulate in my mind. It is that very theory, in its fully developed form, that I would like to share with you now.

This is going to sound weird up front, as a general statement, and especially for guys, but bear with me. College is Neverland, alumni weekend is Peter Pan, and those of us who have graduated and moved on my friends, are Wendy.

You see, we know that Neverland never changes, as it is so named. Nobody gets older and the good guys are forever youthful. College, as an entity, shares almost the same existence. College students will always be the same age. It is a constant, as is the idea of life in Neverland.

Once a year, alumni weekend comes around and (some of us) get excited, make hotel reservations, and do our best to get out of work early. It is a window to our past, an opportunity to go back to a place we learned to call home and where we made great memories with good friends (alcohol a possible contributor). We look forward with great anticipation to that one weekend a year. As we know, Peter Pan would once a year fly through Wendy’s window to bring her back to Neverland for some good ol’ fashioned adventure (and pirate bashing). Alumni weekend, therefore, is like Peter Pan. It comes around once a year to carry us back to a more youthful time and place in our lives.

This is where it all comes together folks, brace yourselves. As we saw in the extraordinary film, Hook, Wendy’s anticipation began to fade as the real world took its toll. As each year passed, she was less and less enthusiastic about a return trip with Peter (until she eventually just handed over her granddaughter, which is a little weird). The same can be said for college grads. As we get older and garner more responsibility in this real world (kids, homes, jobs further away), we, Wendy, are less likely to acquiesce to the request of our Peter Pan, the alumni weekend.

Fortunately, there is no Captain Hook in this analogy (well maybe the price of tuition or textbooks could be portrayed as Captain James but more on that at a later time). Another correlation I found was the company that I share when I return to Manchester for alumni weekend. I had an amazing core of friends and still remain close with a majority of them, and we make a big deal of returning to our alma mater once a year. Without that nucleus of people to build the anticipation around, it would probably not be as much fun.

Oh yeah one last thing, “BANGARANG!!!!”