The Graduation Ceremony- the Class of 2009

On June 27th I went to my stepson's Graduation Ceremony. I watched him go from cool and disinterested and finally, on the day of the rehearsal, he was nervous and excited. I watched this Graduation ceremony with interest. I had never gone to my graduation ceremony, for a variety of reasons, which I will discuss later. I have noticed that as I get older, I start to reminisce more. This is a very annoying habit that I do not like. But watching this modern ritual brought back all of the problems that I had as an adolescent.

It all began innocently enough in the first month of my 12th year of school The teacher was to hold an election for class president. I was nominated, nobody opposed me. The teacher rolled his eyes, and asked for a vote. I received an unanimous vote in a room filled with chuckles and snickers.The teacher who had held the election said that he would put it before the principal for his approval. I asked innocently enough, "What was there to put before the principal, after all no one had opposed me, everyone had voted for me. There should be no question that I should be class president." He rolled his bloody eyes again and said that all potential class presidents had to be approved by the principal.

Several of my friends and I joked about shaking up the school government. I am sure that the prinicpal and teacher were both doing their rolling eyes exercise when they discussed my election. Let me set up the picture for you. I was an anarchist. I had long braided hair, trench coat, combat pants and boots. I loved punk music, and many of punk slogans were written on my pants. I am no longer an anarchist, as it is no longer feasible. There are just too many politicians who will use you and then throw you in concentration camps. Lenin had this problem after the Russian Revolution. The only way that Lenin could deal with anarchists claiming valuable land and setting up alternative communities was to throw them in work camps in Siberia. Nazi Germany was barbecuing anarchists and trade unionist long before the Germans turned on the Jews.

Anyway I digress. A couple of days after the election, my teacher announced that we needed a class president, and was anyone interested. I immediately protested that I was the class president and that I had been democratically elected. The teacher rolled his eyes yet again, as I yelled and frantically waved my arms proclaiming that I was the king of the class! I was screaming that everybody should bow down to me and that everybody should provide me with 25% of their lunch money, and I would give them one more day off a week!

The bell rang during my tirade. My priorities suddenly changed, I had a restraunt to get to, so I could hang out with some friends.I quickly packed up my books, and ran out of the class. Now a days they have a name for this sort of activity it is called Attention Deficit Disorder, we used to just call it following your adolescent id impulses.

When I returned to the school later that day, one of my former subjects informed me that the principal would like to talk to me. I sighed and rolled my eyes. I would be forced to listen to yet another one of his lectures for an hour. These lectures would often end with the words that he would give me one more chance. For some reason he gave me many more one more chances.

This is the reason that I never went to my Graduation Ceremony. Now as I look back on it, I kind of wished that I had gone. Maybe it is because I am getting older and softer in the head. Who knows. It was just nice to see him go through the Graduation Ceremony.