oh my God am I still counting?!: the homecoming edition
For those of you who don’t know, homecoming is a celebration during which all alumni and current students of any given post-secondary institution return to campus for the proverbial “turn up.”
Homecoming, now immortalized by King Beyzus herself in an epic Coachella documentary, is especially turnt at historically black colleges and universities.
And being that Atlanta is the capital of all things blackity black, the annual Spellhouse homecoming (Spelman plus Morehouse) was the single most edifying and glorious series of events this year.
Patty and I drove up to the campus and went directly to the book store. Now Patty is German and stuck out in the crowd. He was a little worried that people were staring at him and I simply told him that most of these guys were probably trying to figure out if he was that one white guy that was the valedictorian of my graduating class …
Anyway … we bought our comfy but overpriced morehouse sweatshirts and went to a glee club rehearsal and I felt like I was home. These musicians … they just sang the way Shug sang when her daddy finally hugged her at the end of The Color Purple. Phew … that rehearsal was long and there were a lot of “sing on doh’s” but it was so familiar I found myself learning the baritone parts even without the sheet music. And then the alumni introduced themselves and TO MY HORROR I was actually on the older side of the spectrum.
… alas, I am indeed old. Bae and I confirmed just how old we were after getting some drinks at the hard rock. We ate and drank and had a good time. And at the end of it … we were exhausted at the very late hour of 10pm. Also, I’m arthritic, but that’s another blog post.
The next day was the tailgate. Morehouse won something called a football game but the real show was happening under all of the tailgate tents. We are and drank and laughed the whole damn day and it was glorious. My frat sang and I saw people I haven’t seen in a decade. And they liked me … they really liked me! I’m surprised because mother was not always the stellar human being I am today … and most people tell me pretty tongue and cheek “oh you’ve grown a lot!”
One thing is for sure … I’ve learned how to hold my liquor. Not everybody was so lucky but I am happy to report that in this space full of beautiful black excellence, drunken shenanigans only ended in warm hugs and sneaky invitations to hotel rooms. Speaking of which, these mofos were hitting on bae (there’s the answer to “why were they staring at him”) but my brothers came to the rescue and screamed “leave him alone he’s married,” lol.
#memories
That was fun … now we are off to the Bahamas because … why not.
peace and love,
LKB
