The 2024 Grinnell holiday dinner (#1320)

Topics/tags: Autobiographical, unedited.

This past Friday, I attended the annual Grinnell College holiday dinner. What’s the holiday dinner? you may ask? I think the name says it all. The President and Dean invite all of the College faculty and staff together for a dinner in the primary dining hall. Or most of the faculty and staff; the dining services staff end up working for the night; I believe they get their own special event at another time. Chef Scott and his crew create a wonderful dinner and a festive environment.

Michelle and I made it to almost every Grinnell holiday dinner. (Unfortunately, she’s the one with the best memory in the family, so I can’t tell you how many we missed or even which ones.) While they blend together a bit, a few are particularly memorable.

The first year, back when it was in Cowles (I think), we knew very few people. A couple invited us back to their house afterward, and we started a friendship that’s lasted more than twenty-five years. We weren’t the only people they invited over; they are wonderful hosts, and they helped introduce us to a wide vvariety of interesting people.

At some point, another couple in that social group started inviting us over for a pre-dinner get-together. While I can’t point to the year that happened, Michelle and I always appreciated the opportunity to talk with friends before the broader celebration.

I’m not sure why, but I recall walking from the pre-dinner to the dinner with Jim Lindberg. Jim was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Jim had a full academic career before coming to Grinnell. He came as a short-term visitor, but he built a full second career at Grinnell. We shared a few students and, after he retired for a second time, he still checked in with me about them.

There were a few years in which some issue or other meant that we sat with random people rather than the pre-dinner group or other set of friends. I appreciate those years, too; it gave us an opportunity to get to know some other people better.

And there’s last year. My last one with Michelle. We had dinner with one person who had recently lost their partner to pancreatic cancer and another who was about to lose their’s to another kind of cancer. I also chatted with Johanna Meehan; we planned coffee. We never had a chance to get together before she passed unexpectedly. As I said, I expected this to be a hard year, not just for me, but for many people.

The pre-dinner party was nice. Johanna’s partner and I shared our experiences being in the lost-spouses club. I chatted with friends about many things. I’m used to looking for Michelle at the party when I run out of people to talk to [2]. But Eldest and Youngest were there, too. So they served as an alternate safety valve. Amazingly, it wasn’t one I needed much. I felt Michelle’s absence, but didn’t break down.

While I usually sit with the pre-dinner friends, this year I sat with some departmental colleagues. I think that made it easier not to have Michelle with me; there wasn’t a much sense of absence in a new context. Of course, my normal group sat in a new place (we’ve been in the Whale Room the past few years), so perhaps that would have felt different, too. In any case, I made it through dinner, too.

You know what’s strange? I hadn’t intended to write about most of that. What I’d intended to say was that I so appreciate the many people I know at Grinnell. It’s wonderful to see them together. And many people stopped by to give me a hug or check in with me; while some visits were clearly Sam lost his wife, I should see how he’s doing others felt more like Sam is someone I care about, I should say hi. It’s nice to feel cared about. I’m not sure what I do to get these special people to care about me, but I’m glad that they do. I care about them, too.

[1] Okay, I’m a bit of an introvert, so I don’t always appreciate that opportunity. But I had Michelle with me. And while she was also an introvert, she was good at making conversation. Perhaps it was her Catholic school training.

[2] Our old friend Rose would say magnet.

Version 1.0 of 2024-12-23.