Later this summer, I'm looking forward to meeting up with a bunch of friends from college days ('65-'69 ~ I'm not quite as old as Jerry), including most of the acoustic-instrument pickers with whom I used to jam, and with whom I first ventured onstage at little local coffeehouse venues.

We were more-or-less "hippie" types, and were a distinct and somewhat embattled minority on a fairly conservative campus back in those years; as a consequence, the relationships we developed may have been unusually close, or at least memorable enough to still hold a lot of interest after 35+ years.

Not everyone at this reunion will be exactly the same age as each other; what we had in common was the "scene" to which we belonged, not our graduating classes. I expect to see members of four or five different class years, maybe about '67 through '71. Of course, at our present ages, that 3-4-5 year age difference means next to nothing (certainly 'way less now than it did when we were kids).

I've met with this bunch just once since school days, sometime back in the 80s, but another similar and partly-overlapping group of similar campus oddballs (primarily rock 'n' rollers in this case rather than folkies) has held three similar unofficial reunions since the mid-90s. The depth of comraderie has been astounding ~ even folks who were barely acquainted back in the old days seem to find a lot of common ground at having shared a time and place that was so intense and important at a key time in our lives. In fact, even the spouses, partners, etc., seemed to fit right in and to become full-fledged members of the group, perhaps feeling a degree of commonality due to their own similar youthful values and experiences, or perhaps just from sensing the group's overall bond and being ready and willing to join in.