Every year about this time the people of West Windsor are reminded that it is nearly time for the May 30 Memorial Day Parade and ceremony. The township sends out a notice to all the armed forces veterans who it is aware live here. Over many years the list and the parade itself have been an ongoing project of Rae Roeder, a one-time township council member and longtime contributor to township progress.
As in past years the parade will start at 11 a.m. on Clarksville Road in front of High School South. Marchers will follow the school marching band as it proceeds from there along Clarksville Road to its intersection with North Post Road at the West Windsor Municipal Center.
A formal ceremony will take place with the laying of a wreath at the All Wars Memorial monument. The ceremony will include the telling of the story of the founding of Memorial Day. Potential marchers are urged to be ready to start at the high school at 10:30.
But before Memorial Day there is another very well-attended parade in this area. It is not in West Windsor at all, but only a few miles away in Princeton. And the number of West Windsor residents in attendance is unknown. Certainly there are some. It is the reunion parade of graduates of Princeton University. This year it takes place at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 28, and is a high point of four days of the Princeton Reunion program. It starts on the campus in front of Nassau Hall. It then wends its way through various parts of the campus and finishes on Poe Field, near Washington Road.
All Princeton classes are invited to participate, and sometimes as many as 70 or 80 classes are represented by living members. This year it is expected that nearly 25,000 alumni will descend on Princeton to take part. Members of each class wear a distinctive uniform, and the uniform may be changed every five or ten years.
Long ago the P-rade — as it is sometimes called — was not confined to just the campus. After leaving the front of Nassau Hall it would make its way across the campus to the intersection of Washington Road and Prospect Avenue. There it would go through the arch at 1879 Hall and proceed down Prospect. When it got to Olden Street it would turn left and enter what was then known as University Field. Today that field is the home of the Engineering Quadrangle, and more recently the just dedicated Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.
University Field was once the home field for the Princeton varsity baseball team. It was the site of a traditional reunion weekend baseball game between Princeton and Yale. Once, in the late 1940s, George H.W. Bush — later president — played first base for Yale in that game. I attended the game and we all heard that the Yale first-baseman had been an airplane pilot during the war. At the time, it was not unusual to hear that about a college student.
This year the formal reunion program begins on Thursday, May 26, and continues through Sunday, May 29. Each day each class has programs that involve activities at their class headquarters and at other points on the campus. Class headquarters are usually designated buildings or courtyards on the campus. Sometimes the headquarters may be a large tent set up temporarily.
Since graduation exercises at commencement take place this year on Tuesday, May 31, a continuous program of activities takes place through the weekend before that, including both Reunions and Commencement.
An important activity is Class Day on Monday, which this year falls on Memorial Day. Class Day is usually featured by a well known speaker from the arts and entertainment fields. This year it is novelist and Princeton graduate Jodi Picault.
Sometimes the Class Day speaker has said something memorable that has taken the headlines away from the scholars and other public figures who have received honorary degrees. The honorary degree recipients are usually not identified until the ceremony takes place.
