Besides Italy, one of my biggest passions is education.  I devote a great deal of time serving as chairman of the board of trustees of the boarding school I attended nearly four decades ago and am vice chairman of a foundation that supports independent secondary school education.  At one time or another at least three of my four children have expressed an interest in devoting their careers to teaching and I was secretly thrilled inside at hearing that news.

I have put most of my education passion eggs in the secondary school education basket, not having devoted nearly as much energy supporting my college or even staying in touch with my college friends.  This week was a start in the direction of making up for that lapse.

 “Williams in Umbria” is how we packaged our seven day open house in Umbria, opening our doors to a handful of friends from my four years at a small liberal arts college in the Purple Valley of western Massachusetts.  Months earlier I had sent out a dozen or so emails to classmates I thought might be interested in joining us to savor the warmth of the Umbrian countryside.  And despite lots of “wish I could make its,” three old chums were waiting for us (or on their way) when we arrived in Cannara a day later than originally scheduled, our arrival been delayed by the need to accommodate a boarding school board meeting conflict.

The week was not so much about reconnecting as it was about marveling over how much the connections to our pasts had never really frayed.  Old jokes were retold and new ones trotted out over vast tables of foods never seen before by this group and wines never drunk before (or at least not in this quantity) during long lunches, late dinners and evenings-turned-mornings under the stars.  Families and histories were introduced to us both in words and pictures and in the flesh, as a number of friends and spouses and significant others and daughters joined their respective Eph in Cannara and were made part of the family.

Fittingly for this part of the world and this culture, connections were largely born or strengthened around the table, with Italy and the daily unfolding of unforgettable adventures and introductions to unmatchable personalities acting as the glue.  Within days our Berkshire brethren were on a first name basis with our local friends chefs Ernesto and Simone, singing karaoke into the early morning hours with the former and making fresh pasta with the latter.  A midweek visit by our boarding school friends the Anthony family broadened our group and added another source of fun and ridicule as they regaled us with stories of their five and a half hour drive from Rome (requiring just over two hours for most) over a lunch at the Terre Margaritelli winery where the group fell under the spell of our hosts Jennifer and Federico.

Eat.  Drink.  Laugh.  Repeat.  So went the days.  The daily itineraries – shopping in Bevagna, walking tour of Perugia, lunching with winery owners and sampling craft beers with the brewery owner – were largely irrelevant, for as enjoyable as each day was, as unique and awe inspiring, what was priceless was the opportunity to recapture a piece of our own histories, from a time in our lives when life seemed so wide open to possibilities.

A lot has transpired in the lives of all of our Williams classmates since our graduation back in 1983, mostly for the good.  But I can think of no better place to recapture the sense of possibility and joy that existed in that little corner of western Massachusetts 30 years ago than that little corner of rural Umbria we call home.

Ci vediamo!

Bill and Suzy