American Boychoir class of ’14 Five-year reunion in Princeton

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After the rest of my family left Connecticut to head back to Seattle on Wednesday the 14th, I got to take a trip down to New Jersey for the 5-year reunion of the ABS (American Boychoir School) Class of 2014. We had all decided right after our graduation to aim to see each other again at least every five years, and so it is nice to be right on track. In 2015 a lot of us had independently decided to come back to the school for the alumni weekend (the airplane tickets were my birthday present), but even so it has been at least four years for those of us who came. After living together for up to three years, coming back together after a year had seemed just like coming back from the regular 2-week break, so I was interested to see whether the friendships had stayed the same after a four or even five year gap.

The process of actualizing the reunion brought us all together closer in more ways than the physical. We’d had a chat going since the beginning, but obviously this is a meager sort of way to stay in touch. It was pretty funny because in the process of me sorting out the details of when to meet, we kept on realizing how much more we could connect. When I asked for everyone’s phone numbers, a couple of my classmates realized that although the chat had been there, they had never actually used it to get the contact information. We also ended up needing to do a group video call the night before I was to leave CT, which we for some reason had never done even though it was very enjoyable to be able to see each other face to face without having to travel.

I had started testing the waters of prepping all this many months ago, but of course the progress and communication started by dragging, and then increasing exponentially in speed and efficacy as the dates got closer. Luckily, practically all of our schedules allowed us to converge in Princeton at the same time. After scheduling the rehearsals for a 6-man a Cappella group in high school, I appreciate how rare this convenience is! But as I said, most of the details proved to be up in the air until the penultimate day. I had originally planned to take trains down to Princeton on that Friday, and so Thursday night I made sure that I had checked the times, and had figured out to leave before 7 the next morning. My grandfather, Pa, had volunteered to be my ride down to New Haven, from whence I’d continue on to Grand Central, and then down to arrive in Princeton in the afternoon.

The overall plan was to meet in Princeton on Saturday. On Sunday several of us would go up to NYC to spend more time with our classmate Anthony, who lived there. Charlie was coming in from a family vacation on Sunday, so then I was going to head out to Somerset, NJ to spend a day with him before heading back on Tuesday to Connecticut (my flight to Europe didn’t leave until the next Sunday).

Well….then I double checked the Facebook chat for my class to make sure I was up to date with everything. I had seen no more than a week before that Nathan had been able to get a good flight, and was going to come up from Florida just for the couple of days to spend time with the rest of us. When I checked at this point, I saw that he was already in NYC, at Anthony’s. However, more and more of my classmates had posted that they were running into more conflicts than they liked on Saturday, while Sunday would work for even more than originally would have been able to come. Over the course of two hours, beginning at 10pm that night, everyone involved was on Facebook at some point, and after as much communication as had gone back and forth in the previous year on the subject, we confirmed a switch of days. For this, I would not leave on Friday morning, but Saturday morning, meet Anthony and Nathan in New York for the day, and then head south with both of them to Princeton, where we would all stay at Nicco’s (before this whole blitz of communication, Anthony and Nathan did not have a confirmed place to stay, and only I was set to stay at Nicco’s house). Good thing this was a whole 6 hours before I left CT toward Princeton! In any case, this new plan worked much better for everyone, including me, as it gave an extra day to spend with my grandparents from Arizona before they left, and streamlined my travel plans so that I would not have to backtrack at all.

As I said, we ended up doing a video call to talk directly to each other. Many of us, including myself, had not seen each other “live” for years, so the reunion started there and then in a way. I think we all realized how feasible this was, and so hopefully we’ll be taking advantage of this more often. I was the least “techy” of my whole class, so they got a kick out of seeing that I was using a laptop. I did reassure them that I had a Samsung smartphone with me, but in New York City two days later Anthony asked to see it, so I think I might have had some takers when I quipped that “actually, I have a flip phone that’s 15 years old.”

So, my grandfather went to sleep with one plan, and woke up with another. Luckily I woke up right when he got up and explained the shift in the spheres that had gone on while he slept, so he didn’t have to read the note I’d written before I’d gone to bed.

I figure only the modern internet could make something like this possible. Even though I’ve lived with this kind of connectivity widely available, I was still amazed that we all were able to pull the act off like we did, and leave the restructured and figurative “jenga tower” still upright and stable.

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On to the trip and pictures. Saturday morning I took the train down to Grand Central from Union Station in New Haven. Even though I’ve made the trip both ways many times when I was at ABS it was the first time I’d managed getting the tickets on my own, and was pleasantly surprised at just how fast and easy it is. Getting the ticket from Penn Station in NYC down to Princeton Junction that evening seemed to take only 30 seconds, and BAM, you have your transportation set. In NYC that day Anthony treated us to a few Uber rides, and led us back to his house on the metro, which I was glad for. With all the different connections, it seems like the sort of thing that is much easier for someone who knows the city and routes well.

I got into Grand Central between 9 and 10 in the morning, where I waited until Anthony came to meet me along with Nathan (up from Florida). After lunch at IHOP (where I ordered “a plate” to the great amusement of my classmates and the waiter: I had a homemade sandwich sent along with me by my Grammy), we visited the Strand Bookstore at Nathan’s request, practically walking straight to the music section and spending all the time there flipping through the books, records, and scores. Nathan came away with a book on blues piano, Anthony with some apparently choice rap records, and I got a copy of the Czerny piano exercises and a neat little, light-enough-to-pack (!) copy of 28 Beethoven arias with full piano accompaniment and 9 canons of his. I think we were all very satisfied both with the purchases, and having two other people who also thought the one place to go in the bookstore was to the music. Nathan and I are both going a very similar route in college (we’re the two in my class doing music/music ed.), so our tastes and conversation interests overlap quite a bit. The really satisfying thing was to see someone like Anthony, the NY businessman (of our class probably the most likely to make millions, soon) pause the rap in his headphones to show us some of his favorite classical or romantic pieces. He may not be getting the same degree as I, but he still appreciates music the same way. I may not have a rap playlist, but his playlist of classical music that he’s put together for himself nears identical to mine.

Perhaps it’s needless to say, but we all meshed back together so immediately that had to remind myself that it had been 5 years, and that we should probably get on to those “what have you been doing since we last met” conversations that less good friends would have begun with. Except for added height, added weight, and in some cases, added facial hair, nearly all of my classmates who I saw again had not really changed from the people they were 5 years ago in 8th grade. And we know each other like the back of our hands.

We also stopped by an asian clothes store, and Anthony took us to see one of what I call an expensive-sneaker store. Then the 40 minute metro trip 8 or so miles back to his house. A block away there was a cracked fire hydrant spraying a bow of water over the road.

At Anthony’s house we met his loquacious old Trinidadian (if I’m not right, I’m close) grandmother, and I got to get a taste of their homemade Mauvy/Maví/Mauby, which is a Caribbean drink made largely from Mauby bark, orange peel, cloves, and cinnamon, boiled really hard together and then sweetened and sometimes fermented: sweet, spiced, with a bitter kick. To me it sounded like the Caribbean variety of Kombucha. Anthony and Nathan were up for getting a couple more shirts/underwear/etc for the NJ trip, so we stopped by. Not the right underwear, and it took Anthony a few more tries at various places, including a pharmacy by Penn Station: he must have eventually found some in NJ. And yes, Nathan and I learned that in NYC, you can sometimes find things like underwear in Pharmacies. In the one by Penn Station I think Anthony actually did see a single small pair, presumably both clean and being sold off a rack. 🙂

Nicco (now studying a philosopher, with a budding philosopher’s beard — Iit took meeting another philosophy Phd. at the church the next morning to realize that’s what it was) and Chris picked us up that night from Princeton Junction, and after stopping at Chris’s house (he’s ABS class of ’15), we all 5 went to Nicco’s house, where Alexander also joined us since he lives only 15 minutes away. It was a grand time, wherein we were sustained by some excellent stew by Nicco’s dad, heard a lot from Anthony about his business ventures, and played Smash Bros until very late, or rather, very early (videogame, first time for me–I was pleased to provide material for some quite entertaining commentary). I threw in the towel first as we neared 2-3am; the nice thing about such late timing is that I had no qualms that I would miss much of anything the next morning when I went to the 9:30am church service in Princeton, where got to see several that I had known from coming to church there from 2011-2014. Nicco had some work that morning at 9, and he dropped me off halfway to Princeton from whence I Ubered the rest of the way.

After church I and Pastor Erhardt visited Anne Bolick, who not only with her late husband Mel took me to church when I attended ABS, but also took the young Anton Armstrong when he was a boychoir boy there 50-some years ago (he’s now one of the pillars in American choral conducting, and directs the choir at St. Olaf in MN).

Finally, I’ll let pictures do most of the talking:

My class plus some others alums met at Princeton Library at 2pm.

Had lunch at Princeton Pi. It will be no surprise to my family to hear that I, like my grandfather, Pa, was the one taking pictures throughout the day.

Visited Albemarle, which on an August weekend was void of any people. The buildings were locked, but we had free range of the grounds, and found a metal stair up to the top of the building. It must have been locked off when we were there, or I’m sure we’d have remembered at least someone going up it.

This picture of the little mermaid with the broken hand comes with a boychoir legend that was passed down to me by other boys when I got there:

Supposedly behind the nook with mermaid is a bomb shelter, that Mr. Lambert had had put in when he lived there. The story goes that the door to the cavity would open when the mermaid’s hand was turned. However, the access and conclusive proof to this was blocked when her hand was broken off, although there is still a hexagonal hole in her wrist. Our theories said that once that key was twisted, the whole golden mermaid and shell could be turned and then the door would swing in. Truly a captivating thought for any of the students, and not unlikely considering the time period.

The American Boychoir School folded in 2017 after having incurred a mass of debt by moving to an old seminary by Princeton, so I was glad to see that the asian math and science school PRISM is maintaining the facilities very well, and respecting the buildings that have generations of history with the boychoir in them.

I really started to like the flexible camera stand + delayed picture taking. For the best pictures in front of Albemarle, I had Charlie pull his car around to the front of “the Oval” so I could get a better angle by mounting the camera up on top of it. I’d get it all set up, push the button, run around to get into the picture, prod whoever was not facing the right way yet, “smile!”, click, run back, adjust, repeat (just a few times).

That afternoon we spent in Theo’s beautiful downtown Princeton house, sight reading, learning how well Charlie could now play and sight read the piano (convenient when we sang Cantique de Jean Racine, which we had sung in France in 2014), chatting, being impressed by Nathan and Anthony’s comedic (Nathan)/impressive (Anthony) rap battle…

…playing frisbee and of course A-E-I-O-U (a hand hacky sack game taught to us by our Spanish director that we played literally every single day on all our tours–this time we figured we’d have one champion for the next five years: Nathan gained the title). It’s a game strangely easy to make stupid misses in, but we actually managed to play it as if we had played it hundreds of times.

We finished off by singing the ABS alumni ballad “Brothers Sing On!,” and after an excellent dinner at PJ’s (joined by two of Charlie’s friends, one of whom is Cory Yhap–second from right below–younger brother of two other ABS alums) where we ate also in 2015, we dispersed. Since Charlie had been able to come down to Princeton (thanks to the schedule change), I just headed up with him back to his house in Somerset.

On Monday the highlight was sorting and labeling all the pictures I’d taken, and playing two parts of Bach hymn arrangements for Charlie to practice dictation on to prep for the aural placement at Indiana University (he’s getting a degree in composition). Apparently last year he placed out of the first 2 or 3 levels of written theory, and I think now he’s done the same for aural theory. Monday night I and Henry (Charlie’s younger brother) had a very good time together watching The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford, which of the movies I’ve seen has THE most well written and tastefully cliche-avoiding plot. At ABS our math teacher had used part of the trailer to create a math problem for us, and at some point we had watched it for one of the “8th-grade movies” on Friday movie nights.

Tuesday was back to CT, where my “aunt” Annie picked me up and took me back to HQ, with a stop to IKEA, which I had never seen before (“Haddam Quarter”, which is head quarters there).

Sincerely,
Samuel Rausch

This trip was made possible by Pa, Annie, the Grillo family, the Banta family, and Pastor Erhardt. Köszönöm szépen!