A Place Called Hope

I'm on the road again today (does it seem to you I've been traveling a lot since I started writing this blog? It does to me!). I'm traveling with Karen to Holland, Mich., on the shores of Lake Michigan to attend Homecoming at my alma mater, Hope College.

This weekend has taken on a different significance for me since I was asked to serve as a member of the college's Alumni Association Board of Directors a year ago. I feel much more connected to the campus goings-on and my fellow alums as a whole, though I will spend an entire day trapped in a conference room for meetings. But I am that guy who really enjoys going back to the old school, catching up with friends of a bygone time, reliving old memories while creating new ones.

I think it's kind of cool to have gone to a college named Hope. I remember getting razzed a lot about it as a teenager when I chose to attend there – "Hey, 'hope' you get accepted! 'Hope' you graduate!" – and while the lure of a large university was powerful, I knew then that I made the right choice. I still know it today.

One of the main reasons I went to Hope, I must admit, was to be closer to my parents, who where quite elderly at the time. But there's something about a small school that's more embracing, more caring. More sincere. When my favorite English professor, Jack Ridl, retired a few years ago, he sent me a handwritten note to thank me for the role I played as one of his students and congratulate me on my success as a journalist. How many people who've been out of a university for 35 years receive a letter like that?

Maybe it's symbolic, too. Like that lady says in the Cancer Treatment Centers of America commercial, "Hope is everything." And as time and my kidneys pass away, hope is a commodity that cannot come in great enough supply.