Back in June when I finished A Henley Memoir with a look-ahead to the 1963 season, I felt that this project was, at last, complete.  However, toward the end of our Reunion I realized that the story would be incomplete without a report on the events of July 5-9, 2007.

The Reunion, in a word, was wonderful.  As expected, the Stewards' Enclosure looked exactly as we had left it in 1962 and 1989. The competitors' weights are still listed in the Programme in Stones and Pounds. The women's hats are more glamorous than ever, and the tradition of bringing all racing to a halt for an afternoon Tea Break lives on. But wonderful was best defined by meeting up once again with the team, eleven rowing colleagues, including our coach, who made all of this possible in 1962.  All eleven of us were joined by spouses, daughters or significant others, almost none of whom I had met until we convened at the Burnham Beeches on July 5.

Most of the men sported gray hair, in varying amounts, and our girths—with several notable exceptions—were much broader.  However, we soon realized that our basic personalities were much the same as they were in 1962.  Underneath it all, we were the same group of guys that had worked so hard to earn a trip to the Henley Royal Regatta.

The Reunion schedule was jam-packed.  After a get-reacquainted dinner on Thursday night...

....we set out early Friday for our first full day at the Regatta. Here, in front of the Burnham Beeches Hotel, we gathered for the ride over to Henley-on-Thames, the men sporting their MIT Blazers and many of the women, their stylish hats.

It seemed as if conversations picked up where they had left off in 1962.

We arrived at the Stewards' Enclosure and watched a few races before entering the Grandstand, standing—so it seemed—right on the edge of the course. A throwback to 1962 and 1963, here is the Cornell University Lightweight Varsity, the 2007 Lightweight National Champions, beating The University of Bristol (UK) in an early round of the Temple Challenge Cup.

Our first scheduled event at Henley was lunch in the Stewards' Enclosure, served in a typically gracious British style.

With the appearance of Mark Barron whose flight arrived late Thursday night, our numbers were now complete. Mark took the prize for being the only one in the group to wear his original 1962 Blazer. (Mark reported, however, that he had decided to leave his hair back in California.☺)

Since repeating the names throughout the story might be tedious, I'll take this opportunity to introduce the entire group right now, with the exception of Chas and Judith Bruggemann. Unfortunately, Judith slipped and fell as we were leaving the hotel and had to make an unscheduled trip to the emergency room to treat a broken wrist. We will meet up with them later.

Here are:
Jerry and Mary Manning –

Roger and Sue Rowe –

 

Dennis Buss with his daughter, Hilda –

Herb and Marilyn Herrmann –

Gary Zwart and Cynthia Sunderland –

Tom and Joanne Alexander –

Peter and Susan Staecker –

 

Mark Barron with his daughter, Rebecca –

George and Arla Zimmerman –

and Bob and Alice Vernon –

We thought that the crowds might be too heavy later in the weekend, so several of us took advantage of the lighter crowds on Friday to walk the full length of the bicycle path from the Stewards' Enclosure to the start of the course.

With boat club tents, corporate pavilions and a variety of picnics lining every inch of the course, there was absolutely no possibility of finding coaches on the bike path. The shrine on Temple Island had been restored since our last visit, now hosting garden parties throughout the Regatta. You might just be able to see this, beyond the referee's launch.

There are points along the course, especially near the Start, where the booms that mark the edge of the course are literally no more than a foot from the river's edge, thus providing a unique vantage point for watching the races.

With a new race starting every ten minutes, there was no shortage of rowing action as we worked our way up the course. Here are two crews passing Temple Island, with the orange markers of the starting line just visible in the top right hand corner of the picture: