John Updike The Maple Stories; Couples
Gore Vidal Burr
Wendy Wasserstein Elements of Style: A Novel
Paul Watkins Stand Before Your God
Evelyn Waugh Brideshead Revisited
Edith Wharton Everything but Ethan Frome
Edmund White A Boy’s Own Story
Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest
Sean Wilsey Oh the Glory of It All
Tom Wolfe Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers; The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby; I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel
Geoffrey Wolff The Duke of Deception; The Final Club
Tobias Wolff Old School
Richard Yates A Good School; Revolutionary Road
Let’s just say that college was the best four or five years of your life. You graduated with a new nickname, new friends, a new set of interests, a new waistline, a new plan for your future … In short, you were remade by your school. It happens all the time.
You and your pals can’t wait till your first reunion. If you went to Princeton, of course, that would be a year after graduation … and every year thereafter.
At most other colleges, that means you return to campus on your fifth, tenth, fifteenth, quinquennial—every five years—anniversary, should you choose to or need to, or because preppies love to attend reunions.
Of course, you could always get your group together somewhere else, at a more convenient time and location. While it wouldn’t be an official reunion, you could have a much better time, and you won’t feel bullied into buying memorabilia you will never wear or put on your car. Some people get married for just this reason.
Unless you put in real time working with your friends scattered here and afar to produce the perfect reunion, we urge you to lower your expectations. You may be more disappointed with who didn’t show up than with who did. You may feel you didn’t get to reconnect with the very classmate who inspired you to return to campus. You may feel old and not enjoy not being carded this time around. If you are female, you may not feel as lithe and desirable as you once were. (If you are pregnant, though, you won’t care at all.) If you are male, you will worry about your hair.
Having said all that, you can still have a terrific time at your reunion. You have tacit permission to act silly, to regress, to drink too much at your fraternity’s open house, and to annoy your spouse. Having tagged alongside you at one reunion and having had a thoroughly un-wonderful time, your spouse may also decide to sit this one out, in which case you will have nothing to apologize for.
If you are wondering whether you are ready to appear at your reunion, consider these important questions:
Have you accomplished anything since graduation? Anything at all? (Marriage, engagement, divorce, children, job, more degrees, dramatic weight loss, and a great suntan all count.)
Do you have a good-looking partner? Do you have a not-great-looking but accomplished or successful partner?
Do you have some “unfinished business” with a classmate that must be resolved at last?
Have you become a movie or TV star since you last walked through the quad?
Did you get the world’s most subtle face-lift? Brow lift? Liposuction?
Is your life better than it was at your previous reunion five years ago (or in the case of Princeton, last year)?
If you responded yes to at least four of the six sets of questions, run—don’t walk—to your alma mater. You need to go, nay, you need to be seen. You will look younger and cooler than most alumni, and you don’t have to stay all weekend.
Go on. Open your alumni/ae magazine to your class notes. Ooh! So many classmates; this will be fun to read.
Or will it? Even though you only graduated ten years ago, none of these people sounds familiar. Who are they? The geniuses you never met? The people who kept asking you to “keep it down” so they could study? On Friday nights?
Where are the classmates who are your friends? The people who might have been better known to the local police or to the dean who gave out extensions rather than to the Rhodes and Fulbright committees …hmmm. Not here.
The problem with life is you think you’re doing okay until you find out that you had a slew of classmates you never knew who are way more successful than you on every level. They run a department at the hospital and have three exceptional children. They help the poor in the Third World and are married to an Olympic silver medalist (and they have three exceptional children). They eat organic food and wake up refreshed every morning and have never been hungover in their lives. (And they have those three exceptional…) Or suddenly you have tons of classmates (not to mention the people the year behind you) who have given buildings to your alma mater in gratitude. Our career counselor never told us to run a fund of funds; if only they had, we’d be giving buildings, too.
If you are like us, you might wonder if these wunderkinds even attended your college. Alumni ringers? Perhaps. Find your yearbook. Look to see if these people are real. You had great times and you have great memories, but at no time did you go to class with or live near Einstein Jr. Who are these people? Did the alumni office dream them up to make you feel like a loser? To inspire you to do better? To rub it (whatever “it” is) in?
Is it even cool for a preppy to send in his or her class notes? Not really. It is much cooler for the news department of your college to find you and ask you if they can write about you. Or to include you in a big article on MacArthur Fellows. Or National Book Award short-listers. Or to reprint your photograph at Sundance with Robert Redford.
Failing that, assuming you are a normal, middle-class, somewhat well-adjusted person with nice clothes, a European automobile, and maybe a few children or a few dogs or a few degrees … what is there to say or brag about? Is it enough to say you flew to Chicago to attend a classmate’s (second) wedding? Dare you mention that you didn’t remember where you were when you woke up?
For those of us who are fallible, human, and a bit flawed (we’re preppies, and we’re okay with that), the arrival of our alumni quarterly can be traumatic. It’s a diary of hair loss. It’s a reminder of the books not read. It’s a passage of time. You were just a recent alum; now you are an old-timer. It’s the rude awakening that you never made the Young Presidents’ Organization.
But hey! Life is good! We are superior vacationers. We may not be sybarites, but we know how to enjoy ourselves. We can sort of carry a tune. We are fast readers. We still have our memories, our diplomas, our teeth, and the keys to our family’s beach house.
When it comes to online pornography, preppies are extremely creative and can avail themselves of more than one kind.
There is the obvious. Due to their emotional and sexual arrested development (going away to an all-boys’ school can do that to you), boys will be boys and enjoy conventional online pornography. This comes to them at no cost, unlike buying the dirty magazines of Daddy’s day.
There is also real-estate pornography, where we can stare and lust after listings in all our favorite places and neighborhoods, and take virtual tours of guest cottages, boathouses, and state-of-the-art kitchens. Ooh! Exciting! Don’t forget 1stdibs, where vintage looks so good, you wonder why you told Grandmother you didn’t want any of her Wedgwood collection or her old Buccellati bracelet. (Libby, sometimes I wonder what’s wrong with you.)
If you do it enough, and can’t stop, it does become pornography in a way. If you keep returning to sites (even your ex’s Facebook page) at the expense of leading a normal life and engaging in normal activities, like gossiping, drinking, and hanging out, anything becomes a problem. Couples have split up over one spouse’s addiction to eBay. Going to www.theknot.com incessantly is not healthy if you are not in the throes of planning a wedding.
The word is moderation, in all things: drinking, giltgroupe.com, net-a-porter.com, and Awfulplasticsurgery.com. You can do it, Sterling.
For those preppies who prefer their exercise to be on foot, balancing bulky objects in b
oth hands to work various muscle groups, shopping or window-shopping is often the activity of choice. It can start as a leisurely little walk and grow to be a vigorous workout. A notion can develop into a serious reconnaissance mission, especially if whatever you’re searching for is sold out in your size.
You could stroll through a farmers’ market (and eat free samples as you go), walk down North Michigan Avenue, up Madison Avenue, or along Robertson Boulevard. What are people wearing? What’s the zeitgeist in this city today? (You may not really care, but it’s impressive to say.) Stop for coffee—Pause for a bite. Think about the book you’re not writing, the closet you are not organizing, the calls you are not returning. Take your dog along. (Aside from food stores, dogs are remarkably welcome in most other shops.)
By the end of your adventure you will have somehow acquired things you urgently needed at 1 pm that you no longer want at 4 pm. (Deposit them in your gift closet. They will suit someone you know.)
Where would preppies be without Ralph Lauren? (And for that matter, where would Ralph Lauren be without us?) We need one another for what is a most symbiotic relationship.
Inspired by the traditional tailoring of British and Ivy League menswear, Ralph Lauren and his Polo labels have been taking over the world with their Prep-Meets-Fashion merger. Some of the most exceptionally handsome and well-dressed people who don’t even speak English are outfitted from head to toe by the empire.
Each store is an elegant or retro environment that we love—whether it’s a vintage villa, an Adirondack lodge, a colonial beach cottage, a ski chalet, a western ranch, or the library straight out of a stately home of England. There, the customers feel they are absorbing an ambience, and they are. Lauren allows us to dream a bit, to take his seductive journey through the meticulous interiors. His stores are like a theme park for decorators and decorating enthusiasts. His RL, a restaurant adjacent to his grand store on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, takes the Polo-ness to a new level. The U.S. Olympic team has worn Polo since 2008. The U.S. Open—America’s Grand Slam tennis tournament—always wears Polo (since 2004), as does Wimbledon (since 2005).
By 1980, the Polo brand was established as a sportswear line, starting with silk ties, and was famous for polo shirts in a dizzying range of colors. It did not get much of a mention in a certain madras-bound book because, well, it was a new company, and we were more comfortable wearing the brands our parents had worn. (We can be sticks-in-the-mud sometimes, if you must know.)
The golden age of preppy music must be the 1980s, when The Official Preppy Handbook was published. We learned then that dressing just the way we always do was considered so bold, so outré, that we gained admission into all those places everyone yearned for. No shrieking out the doormen’s names for us. We walked right past the velvet stanchions. With our love of nostalgia, we lean towards ’60s R&B, classic rock, disco, and anything that reminds us of our junior year abroad. Make room for irony. (Not really.)
Rock Lobster The B-52’s
Girl Talk Dave Edmunds
Brown Sugar The Rolling Stones
Jumpin’ Jack Flash The Rolling Stones
My Girl The Four Tops
Build Me Up Buttercup The Foundations
(Sitting on) The Dock of the Bay Otis Redding Jr.
Psycho Killer Talking Heads
Don’t You Want Me Baby The Human League
I Will Survive Gloria Gaynor
Is She Really Going Out with Him? Joe Jackson
Alison Elvis Costello
Rock the Casbah The Clash
Bad Girls Donna Summer
Superstition Stevie Wonder
I Love the Nightlife Alicia Bridges
Love Rollercoaster The Ohio Players
Black Coffee in Bed Squeeze
Call Me Blondie
I Touch Myself The Divinyls
My Sharona The Knack
Take Me to the River Talking Heads
Stop! In the Name of Love The Supremes
Don’t Leave Me This Way Thelma Houston
Love Shack The B-52’s
Heart of Glass Blondie
Rock the Boat The Hues Corporation
Oxford Comma Vampire Weekend
Rich Girl Hall & Oates
Hungry Like a Wolf Duran Duran
This Will Be Natalie Cole
Pick Up the Pieces Average White Band
Shining Star Earth, Wind & Fire
Lady Marmalade LaBelle
Brick House The Commodores
Everybody Everybody Black Box
They Just Can’t Stop It (Games People Play) The Spinners
Disco Inferno The Trammps
Jump Van Halen
I Want a New Drug Huey Lewis and the News
Mansard Roof Vampire Weekend
Borderline Madonna
Smooth Operator Sade
Got to Be Real Cheryl Lynn
No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) Donna Summer & Barbra Streisand
Boogie Oogie Oogie A Taste of Honey
Gloria Laura Brannigan
Tonight She Comes The Cars
Stayin’ Alive Bee Gees
Love to Love You Baby Donna Summer
Welcome to the Working Week Elvis Costello
Good Times Chic
You Sexy Thing Hot Chocolate
If I Can’t Have You Yvonne Elliman
Don’t Stop ’ Til You Get Enough Michael Jackson
The Love You Save The Jackson 5
Local Girls Graham Parker
What Do All the People Know? The Monroes
Forever Young Alphaville
Love Will Tear Us Apart Joy Division
Tainted Love Soft Cell
Cars Gary Numan
1979 Smashing Pumpkins
Smells Like Teen Spirit Nirvana
Bizarre Love Triangle New Order
How Soon Is Now? The Smiths
Everthing Counts Depeche Mode
Pump It Up Elvis Costello
Pop Muzik M
The Perfect Kiss New Order
This Love Maroon Five
Love and/or lust don’t always show up when you think they will. Sometimes it really is a matter of convenience. Say hello to Anderson Flatto and Julia Kelly. We know that they will end up together tonight—maybe even through the holiday season—but they don’t know it quite yet. Although they both dressed for the best of possibilities, no one ever meets at Reid Hallowell’s parties; most bring dates (and occasionally lose dates) here.
But hey, it’s getting late, and you know a lot of the same people … which is important, since you will both report on what happens after you leave Mr. and Mrs. Hallowell’s house to everyone you know in common. You were both raised within the same world. Your parents know one another, even if they are not really friends. Anderson is accountable. You can check on him. You know him. And despite pretending otherwise, Andy, you’ve known Julia since that after-school ice-skating program in elementary school.
In one sense, a destination wedding is incredibly prep. It suggests you love your friends so much that you want them on your honeymoon … a kind of continuation of Spring Weekend at DU mixed with summer camp and a family reunion.
On the other hand, insisting that your friends spend their vacation time and money to travel to your wedding, get a new outfit for your occasion (especially if you asked them to be in the wedding party), and buy you appropriate wedding gifts is a bit much, isn’t it?
If you or your parents are able to foot the travel bill, forget what we just said. Invite your friends to Hawaii; we won’t object. If you ask friends to travel to your wedding, you will be expected to organize and host other events besides the mere wedding. You should host the “rehearsal dinner” the night before, arrange for some kind of sporting activity for “the boys” early on the wedding day (so that someone is terribly sunburnt by the ceremony itself), as well as the brunch the following morning.
For many couples, a destination wedding is cheaper than the traditional service and bi
g black-tie reception they would have to have at home. Instead of 225 guests, including your parents’ friends that you don’t even know, you have about thirty of your closest. Instead of serving surf and turf, you can get away with an informal seaside buffet, serving just surf.
We recommend that you not choose a wedding factory for your big day. Lots of places advertise to the bridal market, but it is less romantic if you are rushed because the banquet manager has another restless bridal party circling outside the ballroom. Places that advertise as special, unique, once-in-a-lifetime, and sprinkle the word “memories” like too much salt from the salt shaker are not special. We’re thinking now of Atlantis in Nassau, the Ahwahnee in Yosemite, and Sandals in Jamaica.
Carley Roney, editor in chief of theknot .com, the Internet wedding site (see), points out that 20 percent of all weddings are “destination weddings” in the first place. For example, you and most of your friends live in and around Minneapolis but are going to Ardmore, Pennsylvania, to the bride’s parents’ house for the ceremony. Hometown is a destination, too. And half of those weddings are what we think of as real destination weddings: Everyone has to travel somewhere else to be part of the fun.
Most popular now? The Nantucket wedding, with a clambake dinner for all the out-of-town guests the night before, the ski wedding in Aspen, and the beach wedding in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Who does this? Roney says it’s tremendous among couples in their thirties, the kind who “want everyone’s undivided attention. It’s a 48-hour party ‘with me and my best friends.’ Ordinarily, a wedding lasts an average of four hours. A destination wedding makes it as long as is humanly possible.”
It was often said of the first President George Bush that he “reminded every woman of her first husband.” This was hyperbole: President Bush did not remind every woman of her First Husband, just every preppy woman. Bush was preppiness incarnate. He reminded every preppy woman of her first husband because he was a good mixer, from a good background, a decent sportsman, a bit of a goofball, and totally unreflective. The preppy First Husband may be accomplished and intelligent, but—like Bush—his ideas will be 100 percent received, he will be a philistine, and he will have the psychological depth of an inch-worm. Likewise, the preppy First Wife will be presentable and fun, and will have absolutely no interior life, unless you count interior decorating—she will know her way around Scully & Scully, she will have majored in art history at Rollins, she will be “social,” and she will have serious unresolved issues with her mother, of which she is entirely unconscious.
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