Those were some good times, kid.

A long, long time ago when my life was so different and I was so different, I spent a summer in Vermillion with my best friends and it.. was.. magic. At night we drank together, danced in the rain together, and ran from the cops together. During the day we put on red shirts and welcomed incoming freshman and their parents to the campus that we loved. We were upper classmen and lower classmen, conservative and liberal, artsy and science-y. We came from different chapters and different disciplines, but for one summer, we were like the kids in The Breakfast Club, and for some reason, it just worked.

Now, a lot of years later, so much has changed, but some of the friendships and relationships have lasted. Three couples from that summer (SS & EQ, KW & JL, and now MV & LK) are engaged! TY is married to his high school gf. CS and AO are married to their college bf's, and AO is expecting her second child! Even my fellow crazy summer girl TB is engaged!

Not all of us are buying or wearing diamonds just yet. DP and MC are living the life in DC. JG just spent a year studying in Australia, and JN, AB, and DK live in Omaha and are all in grad school. BL finished her first Master's in Canada and is now back from round two. And I'm here, lost in New York City.

With the recent news from the summertime clan of engagements and pregnancies, I am still so baffled at how differently our lives are from how they were back then. I guess our days of case races and penis graffiti are long gone, and I'm okay with it most of the time. But every now and then, I get the familiar urge to get pickled with my summer crew and shout from my front porch, "I love you guys!"