Staunton

It's almost 10 o'clock and I'm sitting on the patio in front of Alora's dorm. We're supposed to be moving her out this weekend but she hasn't really finished packing yet. Mary Baldwin has a pretty nice setup though, that allows her to leave the better part of her belongings on campus in storage. Downtown there is a band playing. We watched them for a little while after dinner, but I can hear their music carrying up the hill. The campus is atop a hill. Alora spent this year in Hilltop dorm. Apparently the live music is a rarity around here. I'm enjoying it though. Alora wants to stay through tomorrow to watch a bunch of her friends graduate. Graduation ceremonies are so boring.

Tonight we met the original PEG. She was a Staunton native who started at college 13. After that she went to Harvard Law and then clerked under Stephen Breyer - you know, the SCOTUS judge. Spinelli spoke at Alora's Phi Beta Kappa induction ceremony. I did not realize when I drove up here this morning that we would be attending said ceremony. Brittan, who missed her twin desparately, came with me to split up the driving. Alora and Brittan have the whole weekend planned, but they have only slowly let me in on it.

Staunton really is a beautiful town. Brittan misses it being at Vanderbilt and I can see why. The small liberal arts college thing is fun. I did it at Presbyterian. Knowing everybody. Small classes. Beautiful architecture. Small town. Of course, you can only go so far in such places. For me having one of the three physics professors getting hit by a truck was sufficient. None of the classes I planned to take in that subject my second year were happening because of that. I had also read the three volume Feynman lectures before taking a physics class so I ran circles around the non-calc-based introductory offering there.

Alora's experience has been different. She is 17 and dreams of being a writer more than winning a Nobel Prize. I understand. Ironically I was the one who got her excited about writing via Nanowrimo. She went to London in pursuit of that writing dream. Planned, paid for, and executed a transatlantic trip at 17. I still haven't figured out how to do it at 35. Had I stayed in physics I'd have spent some time at CERN by now.

I've often said that you're only old when your regrets outnumber your dreams. I have accumulated a lot of regrets over the years. Some days I fear they might be making me old. Or perhaps they are merely a syptom of being old. On the other hand I still have a ton of dreams. Life is full of adventures and I can see many, many ahead of me.