As a first-generation Grover, Homecoming weekend seems somewhat unappealing. As the weekend approached, I imagined a campus full of students and their parents and grandparents celebrating and having fun while I was alone. Now, I am not the type of person to get lonely, but seeing other students with their parents would have been a depressing sight. These were my thoughts about Homecoming freshman year prior to receiving a phone call from my mom, which changed Homecoming for me as I had thought I knew it. During this phone call, my mother informed me that she had signed up herself, my father, and my sisters to come visit me for the Saturday of Homecoming weekend. In hearing this from my mom I was ecstatic, as not only would I not have to fear being alone on Homecoming weekend, but I also was going to get to spend time with my family on campus surrounded by a community of past, present and future Grovers.
This joyful phone conversation I shared with my mother led to not just a visit from my parents, but a joy-filled day in which I could catch up with my family, watch sports, and show them around the campus I was growing to love. This phone call also led to the start of a family tradition, because not only did my parents visit me on Homecoming weekend my freshman year, but also my sophomore, junior and senior years. Thus, all of this proving to me that my original thoughts of what Homecoming at Grove City College looked like developed into a family tradition built from the investigation of a non-alumni mother (If I’m being honest I would not even have known that my family could come to Homecoming if it was not for my mom looking into it) and the love and excitement of a first year Grover’s family to see their son/brother and to want to be involved with him on campus. This tradition, although not significant to most, became a highlight of my fall semesters as the College came together and provided my family and I an opportunity to step back, relax, and get together. Feel free to steal my family’s tradition as a first-generation Grover.
