My name is Dinah McCain '73, and this is my Southwestern story.

When I remember Southwestern in the late '60s and early '70s, it’s the light I always see first. The light shines differently in Georgetown than elsewhere. I would stand on the second floor landing of LK Hall and look out the window toward the Interstate, as far as I could see to the horizon. The green rolling hills under the white cumulus clouds, so low it seemed I might touch one, were dappled by the sun as the clouds moved over the land and the sound of Nilsson singing “Everybody’s Talking” would be coming out of someone’s room as I dreamed about my life and my future, wondering what was coming in the next four years.

Then I think about the late afternoon light when I sat upstairs at the library and watched the sun go down behind the big live oak tree and saw the soft light on the grass below. At the Booties, the light on the water was like crystal as we tubed down the San Gabriel, beer in one hand, trailing the water with the other. Sometimes the sun would be hot, and then the cold river water felt wonderful. In the winter, we still went to the Booties and sat in the car and drank more beer and listened to our 8-track tapes of Neil Diamond and The Carpenters and sang every sorority and fraternity song we knew.

To this day, whenever I’m on the road near Georgetown, I always visit “The Walburg Cathedral,” as we referred to the Church on Theon Road. It was my spiritual center during my years at Southwestern and is still today. I have signed the book in that church and lit more candles over the years than I can count. The light there illuminates the cemetery behind the church, and I have walked among the stones and found peace when my heart was troubled. I have gone there to give thanks for special blessings, and prayed for help with finals several times. I believe my prayers were answered, for my years at Southwestern have made my life rich. The liberal arts education I received there has paid for itself many times over in the years since I graduated, and the illumination of the light in Georgetown has been two-fold: the light of the sun lit my soul. The light of the University lit my mind.