In the Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris, Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) time travels to the 1920s - his favorite era - where he is surrounded by Picasso, Hemingway, Dali and Cole Porter. But he finds that they long for a different Paris - the 1890s Belle Epoch, with Gaugin, Degas, and the Moulin Rouge in its prime. In that period, he discovers that they believe the city's best period to have been the Renaissance.
Last night, I introduced an incoming T'14 to a group of my classmates and he sighed with disappointment when he realized they were graduating this summer and won't be around to hang out with next year. But, as great guys as they are, I'm confident he has no need to be disappointed. Tuck is like Paris, in that each generation of Tuckies (and Parisians) adds something slightly different, but there is a consistency that runs through them all, making the place exciting and wonderful - and it's hard to pick which time is best.
I have sometimes wondered what would have been the best time to spend two years on the Rive Gauche of the Connecticut: the Class of 2006, whose members consistently still give money for school social events over and above their annual school donations; the class of 1987, which won the MBA rugby world cup two years in a row; the 3+2 classes of the 1950s, who have been unbelievably successful as a group; the class of 1902, who started it all off. When would have been the best time to go to Tuck? It's impossible to say, but now is just fantastic and that's not going to change any time soon.
Seriously, where else would you ever want to go to school?!
Here is the ASW video for 2012, aptly co-directed by a Parisian.