How Does It Feel To Join Princeton’s Old Guard?

The P-rade marks a life transition for three groups every year. The graduating class moves into the ranks of the alumni. The 25th reunion class joins the blazer-wearers. And the 66th reunion class enters the Old Guard.

This year, the Class of 1960 officially enters the Old Guard, and the Class of 1961, celebrating its 65th reunion, stands on the precipice. You might call them the youngest of the oldest, the freshmen of the seniors. If it seems implausible that people who graduated in this century could now be celebrating their 25th reunion, consider that the ranks of the Old Guard now reach back to the Kennedy years.

How does it feel to have reached that O.G. milestone? PAW asked several members of the Classes of 1960 and ’61, as well as some Old Guard veterans, for their perspectives.

“Aren’t we all 45 forever?” laughs Ross Webber ’56. Back when he was a senior, the oldest men in the P-rade had graduated during the Cleveland administration. Now he is that age. Turning serious, he notes that what really makes his advanced age a reality is reduced mobility. “When you discover that you can’t go to events unless you [can] find a golf cart driven by some lovely undergraduate, you definitely have a reduced sense of being involved in the reunion,” he observes.

Jay Siegel ’59 has a few years of Old Guardom under his belt. From his perspective, the best part of leading off the P-rade is that he and his classmates don’t have to wait around too long. “I don’t know if you’d call it jarring” to be among the oldest alumni, he reasons, “because I think we knew sooner or later it would come to that. It’s just that it was a disappointment not to be able to walk the whole route.”

Walking the P-rade route — versus riding in a golf cart or trolley — is one big marker for the oldest alums. Bill Yeckley ’60 
volunteers that he walked “quite handily” last year. Yeckley’s classmate, Jean Rousseau ’60, did too, albeit with the aid of a walker. “My legs aren’t what they used to be,” he acknowledges. “But I managed to keep up with the pace and had a great time doing it. I was quite proud of myself.” Yet another classmate, Andreas Prindl ’60, says that joining the Old Guard hasn’t sunk in for him yet, but he has an excuse — he entered Princeton early and is two years younger than the rest of his class. “I am resisting mightily the thought of being old,” he says. “It’s nearly Old Guard for me!”

For George Brakeley ’61, the prospect of entering the Old Guard is less important at the moment than tending to the details of his class’s upcoming 65th reunion. Brakeley has held practically every class officer position over the last six decades, so Reunions are a way of life for him. Still, he acknowledges, “We’re losing so many guys. That’s very sobering.”

Like Brakeley, many members of the Old Guard come back every year. Others, due to ill health or distance, return only occasionally, if at all. But for at least one member of the Class of ’61, this year’s P-rade will be his first.

John Waterbury ’61, an emeritus professor in Princeton’s politics department, lived abroad for extended periods, including 10 years as president of the American University of Beirut. During his time overseas, Waterbury notes, he couldn’t make it to Reunions. During his years on the faculty, it didn’t seem necessary, since he was already on campus every day. Some arm-twisting by his classmate, Brakeley, finally convinced him to attend this year. It will be an easy trip, since he lives in town.

“I won’t recognize most of my classmates because we’ve all aged so much,” Waterbury says, “but I am looking forward to it.”

Jay Siegel ’59 may not be as young as he used to be, but he still makes the most of Reunions.

Beverly Schaefer

Asked for any wisdom they might share with this year’s seniors, Brakeley shouts, “Don’t miss the P-rade!” Siegel fleshes that out with some advice he gives to undergraduates on his class’s Reunions crew. “I always tell them, ‘Enjoy every single moment that you’re here.’”

Webber speaks for many when he describes how much he enjoys reconnecting with classmates at Reunions, even those he sees infrequently. “That’s the magic of Princeton, that when you go back and connect with somebody you had known, it’s like the years just fall away,” he says. “You certainly transcend your physical condition for those moments.”

One thing everyone in the Old Guard agrees on is the indispensability of Dottie Werner. Officially, she is the University’s coordinator of alumni class affairs and Old Guard reunions. Unofficially, she is their angel. “Prior to joining the Old Guard, [my class] did our own planning: meals, publicity, the works,” Siegel says. “Now Dottie has taken over, and she’s wonderful. I mean, she has the answer to everything.”

For more ambitious members of the Old Guard, there is one more accomplishment to aim for: the Class of 1923 Cane, carried in the P-rade by the oldest alum from the oldest returning class. Brakeley and his fellow members of ’61 still have several older classes ahead of them, but they are already discussing it.

“I have had a classmate or two say to me, ‘I want to be the oldest guy getting the cane,’” Brakeley says. “My response is always, ‘You’re going to have to elbow me out of the way!’”