40 Years Hath October
Monday, March 31, 2008 Filed in: Events
It's been 40 years since education authorities in my
high school decided I was no longer fit to learn.
Sorry, I can't celebrate.
The 40th anniversary of our graduation is scheduled for October, during the high school homecoming event, and fall festival parade. I won't be there.
It isn't because I don't like celebrations or have bad memories of high school.
It isn't because I don't want to see how much (or how little) fellow classmates have aged, though there may be some vindication in a comparison. But old is old, regardless of the varying degrees of wrinkles and hair color.
Simply put, there's a prior obligation that negates the annual trek to Missouri. The last of our children is getting married in October. It's nice to be needed.
For whatever the reasons, I don't feel 40 plus whatever years it took to get me through high school. I have more pain, less hair, probably more skin. But I'm still me, still a child (or, a teenager) at heart, and still looking forward to tomorrow.
Over the past 40 years or so I've done what all of us probably do. Memories are repeated over and over, sharp edges are sanded down, pleasurable memories receive extra polish.
That ongoing exercise diminishes the pains and discomforts of youth, enhances the magical moments we cherish.
I enjoy telling people that I finished in the Top 70 of my high school graduating class. I was #70 out of 72. High schools in big cities, such as Honolulu, have graduating classes of 600 to 700 students. The comparison puts me in the top 10-percent.
Lies, damn lies, statistics.
I fared better in college and graduate magna cum laude. Yes, there were more than 72 students in my college graduating class.
Where have the years gone? What has everyone done with their lives? Does it matter or is it merely a curiosity?
I'm curious, but it doesn't matter.
Where is Jimmy Smith, my best friend and confidant in high school? We parted and saw each other only two or three times in the following decades.
Where is Carol Davidson, the first love in high school, a love later in adulthood?
Where is Ellen Morrow, our high school math teacher, so patient and indulgent of my learning disorder with equations (I can't remember strings of mixed letters and numbers-- even phone numbers)?
As adults, we may want to relive those magical moments, and I understand both the temptation and the futility.
I prefer to create new magic in the next moment.
The 40th anniversary of our graduation is scheduled for October, during the high school homecoming event, and fall festival parade. I won't be there.
It isn't because I don't like celebrations or have bad memories of high school.
It isn't because I don't want to see how much (or how little) fellow classmates have aged, though there may be some vindication in a comparison. But old is old, regardless of the varying degrees of wrinkles and hair color.
Simply put, there's a prior obligation that negates the annual trek to Missouri. The last of our children is getting married in October. It's nice to be needed.
For whatever the reasons, I don't feel 40 plus whatever years it took to get me through high school. I have more pain, less hair, probably more skin. But I'm still me, still a child (or, a teenager) at heart, and still looking forward to tomorrow.
Over the past 40 years or so I've done what all of us probably do. Memories are repeated over and over, sharp edges are sanded down, pleasurable memories receive extra polish.
That ongoing exercise diminishes the pains and discomforts of youth, enhances the magical moments we cherish.
I enjoy telling people that I finished in the Top 70 of my high school graduating class. I was #70 out of 72. High schools in big cities, such as Honolulu, have graduating classes of 600 to 700 students. The comparison puts me in the top 10-percent.
Lies, damn lies, statistics.
I fared better in college and graduate magna cum laude. Yes, there were more than 72 students in my college graduating class.
Where have the years gone? What has everyone done with their lives? Does it matter or is it merely a curiosity?
I'm curious, but it doesn't matter.
Where is Jimmy Smith, my best friend and confidant in high school? We parted and saw each other only two or three times in the following decades.
Where is Carol Davidson, the first love in high school, a love later in adulthood?
Where is Ellen Morrow, our high school math teacher, so patient and indulgent of my learning disorder with equations (I can't remember strings of mixed letters and numbers-- even phone numbers)?
As adults, we may want to relive those magical moments, and I understand both the temptation and the futility.
I prefer to create new magic in the next moment.
