Reliving the ’90s in Williamstown

THE WEEKEND WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!!

If you are following along, I rather impulsively signed up for this a capella (Ephlats!) reunion event after finding out some old friends (some I hadn’t seen in 19 years and was not in any regular touch with) were going. It felt like a crazy decision: Williamstown is NOT easy to get to, there’s been a TON of travel for us this month, plus I was on call until 5 pm.

(I would have been call all weekend had my colleague not asked for a swap! I KNEW my April self would thank January SHU profusely!)

It ended up being SUCH A BLAST.

We sang, we caught up, and then we sang some more. It’s insane how the muscle (and ear?) memory still exists for songs you sang as a teen/early-20s college kid. I left work at 4:30 pm on Friday, fingers crossed that there wouldn’t be any 4:59 consults (there weren’t!) and signed out to my colleague on the phone. JetBlue/TSA were amazing and everything was honestly quite easy! I cram-practiced the songs on a shared Google drive (in flight wifi even worked) in my head on the way and drank a cup of DD coffee which absolutely saved me. I even managed the dark mountainous drive well, singing Taylor Swift comfort songs to keep me grounded.

I arrived at the Williams Inn at 11:20 and after checking in there was a WhatsApp text from one of the group members that they were actually still hanging out outside! I ventured down and . . . THEY WERE SINGING!!! And I remembered the song, so I joined right in.

Seriously, it was kind of magical.

THE NEXT DAY

I got up ~7 hours later, and the next day was dedicated to rehearsing and singing. We practiced a bunch of old songs but settled on 3 for the evening’s concert, two old ones plus . . . “Let It Go.” From Frozen. Why?

Because Kristen Anderson Lopez, the songwriter (cowriting with her husband), WAS IN THE EPHLATS several years before I joined. WHO KNEW? (not me). This is kind of a big deal and while that sounds intimidating she was very normal and awesome. I did manage to tell her that my Frozen-era children had all of her songs on repeat for years! We sang the Pentatonix arrangement and sounded . . . decent!? Here is a pic of us on stage:

Anyway, we spent the day hanging out, catching up, singing. Then we had the concert and an after party where we scream-sang everything we didn’t sing at the concert. There were 80+ attendees and we were grouped into decades for the performance- the oldest group was comprised of ’60s grads (all 80 year old men as the college had not yet gone coed!), and the youngest were obviously the current group who were lovely and talented.

(I reconnected with my organic chemistry professor — an alum + ’80s group singer — who didn’t remember me but of course DID remember my brilliant friend who has since become a chemist, and also one of my Duke peds attendings who is married to a vascular surgeon who Josh worked with at Duke! The Ephlats network runs deep.)

I sang with the ’90s group because I started in the 90s (even though I had graduated in ’02) and my closest friends from the group are 1-3 years older. We shared so many memories, from concerts to trips to various intragroup romances to a car trip where one friend and I harmonized to Aimee Mann on the California freeway for hours. It’s a core memory for me, but the shocking part was that a group member 2 years younger brought it up because he vividly remembered being in that car!

(I guess we were pretty good!)

SUNDAY

Basically I picked up 2 friends who were flying back to CA and we drove together, and then I headed home! But even this hour-long catchup conversation was so much fun. I now feel very reconnected with these people and hope to keep the text chains and relationships going.

I have tons more pix (including an amazing group recreation of a 2007 pic!!) but I don’t know who wants their images shared or not so I’ll just leave you with this banner in the closet of my hotel room:

I cannot overstate how glad I am that I went. I would sign up for the next one (2031?!) right now!!!