Graduation Revisited

Okay:

So, today our seniors are graduating, which means I should probably wear a tie. I haven't worn a tie to work in months. But this is a special occasion, I'd say.

I remember my high school graduation. Kind of.

I remember there was a lot of crying going, but I don't recall being particularly sad at all. I was more or less shocked that I had managed to pull it together and graduate. It seemed like it was touch-and-go all the way up to the last minute.

I remember the rehearsals. But because I went to art school, our rehearsals were a little but more involved. Our theme, get ready for this, was the musical Pippin. Being in the Literary and Media arts department, I had never participated in a theatrical production, but I wasn't going to miss what would probably be my last opportunity to be in a musical.

Or, at least my last chance to do it without being thought gay.

I had a small bit part with no speaking lines that I could remember. I just had to remember some light choreography and the show's theme.

I can still remember. "Join us. We've been on a journey. Mystic, magic and exotic. Join us. Come and waste a hour or two...doodely doo!"

Then I somehow ended up back in my cap and gown and sitting with the rest of my class. I don't recall exactly how it was all pieced together, but I do remember that little bit of song and the loud family in the balcony with the noise makers. But that's it really.

Gill remembers a lot more than I do. Gill, who called me the afternoon of the baccalaureate and left a message on my answering machine (remember those?) asking, "Youngin, is you goin' to the bachelorette?"

To this day, my mother and sister call him The Bachelorette Guy and can be brought to tearful laughter if the story is retold.

I was in Gill's office the other day. He showed me a copy of Jet magazine with Victoria Rockwell on the cover. "Where do you remember her from?" he asked.

"Was she on a soap opera or some sit com?"

"No, you jack ass," he said, slightly annoyed. "She spoke at our graduation."

"Really?" I said. "I don't remember her at all."

"Jesus, man," said Gill, shaking his head.

And I don't. Not one bit.


Yesterday, I was at the rehearsal. I was feeling somewhat annoyed that I hadn't been asked to participate, but then I thought better of it and decided that it would be good to do nothing and just watch.

I was nostalgic.

I sat next to Gill for a while and talked to him. Our White Homegirl was helping with the actual rehearsal.

"It's the end of an era," she said a few days ago. Friday's my last day at the job. Our little threesome will be no more. No more two hour lunches. No more philosophical debates on the merits of blowjobs and anal sex at happy hour. No more. No more. No more.

It's the same, in a far more dramatic sense, for these kids. But most of them seem oblivious. As I was. So much, in fact, that I can only remember the odds and ends, the bits and pieces, and that fact that the graduation coordinator had a troublesome mole on the tip of her nose that I couldn't stop and staring at and wondering why she wouldn't just have the thing removed, and that at some point, someone had told us to make sure not to get our cap and gowns too wet.

I listened to the graduation coordinator talking to the 16 or so graduates, while they fidgeted around and talked on their cell phones. "No balloons," she said. "They could get caught in the ceiling lights, which would be dangerous."

She continued. "And when it's over, please do not throw your caps into the air."

"What?" one of the students shouted angrily. "We can't even throw our caps?"

"Those caps have pointy ends," she went on. "And what goes up must come down. Now it would be real messed up if someone caught the pointy end of your cap in their eye on graduation day, wouldn't it?"

"A real nigga gon' throw his cap," the student said.


The graduation coordinator went on talking, making sure that everyone knew exactly where they were to sit and when they were to sit and when to turn their tassels.

One student remarked, "When we walk out that door tomorrow and go outside, that's when 'dulthood start."

I giggled, but was warmed by the sentiment.


Someone asked, "What's the theme for this thing? A graduation needs a theme."

A staff member replied, "How about 'Good Luck, Nigga'?"


Make sure to download the New Freestyle of the Week.


Thanks for reading.


GOBAMA!


Factoid: When Marion Barry was in office, he came to every single DC public high school graduation and delivered the same speech which included a refrain of comparisons between education and various items of popular culture. "Education's like scotch tape. You can't see it but know it's there. Education's like Coca Cola. It's the real thing. Education's like Pepsi. Uh Huh."

Now that, I do remember. Only he wasn't in office when I graduated.