Save the Date!

“What is it that binds us to this place, as to no other? Its not the Bell, the Well, the stone walls, or the crisp October nights, or the memories of Dogwoods blooming. Our love for this place is based on the fact that it is, as it was meant to be. A University of the people.” – Charles Kuralt

Those were our stone walls. Walls under whose rocky ridges we passed nights nestled in the arms of dollar night blackout, safe beneath Silent Sam's silent visage, well-versed in the secrets hidden behind his confidential grin. We sat atop them Bid Day, watching Greek goddesses flock to houses we were destined to wake up in--sundressed and sun-drenched women we were destined to know and love.

That was our Bell. We caught it peering into the hallowed, golden belly of Kenan Stadium September afternoons, first and ten on their twenty and the entire evening before us. Our sober sentinel standing guard over the sacred Hill and its storied halls, its denizens awash in the warmth of an alcohol haze, bathed in the light of a Carolina sun. We heard it pealing into winter evenings the call and response of an unknown future. The gilded pillar of possibility, the tolling beacon and time-keeper of our youth.

That was our Well. That ancient spring of good fortune, whose moon-blue roof received our muted confessions and unspoken dreams. That time-honored tabernacle, in whose familiar chambers we took casual and delightful liberties with warm, well-intentioned partners. An altar of respite, tradition, and immortality.

Ours were the dogwoods. Their innocent petals recipients of idle thoughts, her shade a cover for idle hands, and the breeze a conspirator. Her branches a kind reminder that one perfect place can transcend the tyranny of time. A canopy bestowing the continual promise of perpetual renewal and the surety that there is no finer existence than to be 22 in Chapel Hill.

Then, again, you're always 22 in Chapel Hill.

Ours was the well, ours was the bell, ours were the stone walls, and ours the dogwoods. They are ours still.

We challenge you to tighten your Croakies, lace up your New Balance and prepare to pop double pastel collars. Shorten the hem of those sundresses and fill your flasks with bourbon and two caps of verve. This celebration's going down faster than Evan Williams at a ZoSo party, with bottles of Bub to honor ten years out of our prime.