The retreat ran from a Thursday lunch through Sunday brunch, as it always has. Forty-one associates attended, of whom thirty-eight were Whale tier or above and three were Initiate associates whom the Committee had specifically invited to observe.
Weather was, by the standards of late September in the Rockies, generous. Mornings cold. Afternoons clear. Evenings cold again. The fireplace in the main lodge was lit on all three evenings, although on the Friday it was lit, in the staff's quiet judgment, slightly later than ideal.
Thursday
Lunch was served at one o'clock. Trout, served whole, with brown butter and almonds. Most associates were still in travel attire. The mood was the mood it always is on the first afternoon: arrival, recognition, the particular pleasure of seeing in person someone one has only previously seen in a Telegram window.
The afternoon's only scheduled activity was a quiet hour in the library, with coffee and a small selection of pastries. This is, the Committee has long maintained, the most important hour of the entire weekend. It is the hour in which the retreat becomes a retreat.
Friday
The morning's session was led by an outside guest whose name we have, by tradition, agreed not to publish. The session ran two hours longer than scheduled. No one objected.
Friday's dinner was the formal evening. Black tie, by tradition. The toast, as is also traditional, was given by the longest-tenured associate present. The remarks were brief. They closed with a line that has been quoted in subsequent correspondence: "The Club is the room in which the conversation can take place. Our job is to be worthy of the room."
Saturday
The morning was a long breakfast. The afternoon was the silence.
The Saturday silence is, for new associates, the most distinctive feature of the Aspen retreat. From two o'clock through sundown, no associate addresses another associate verbally. Note-passing is permitted. Reading is encouraged. Walking is encouraged. The Committee has, over the years, observed that the conversations on the Sunday morning following the silence are, almost without exception, the best conversations of the weekend.
Sunday
Brunch began at ten-thirty. Eggs, smoked fish, two kinds of pastries, coffee. The mood was the particular mood of the last morning of any retreat: warm, slightly elegiac, already beginning to look forward to the next.
We will see our associates again, for those who will be in attendance, at the Q4 dinners in December.
