High school graduations galore across the country this month, and happy young people escaping what many of them see as the prison they have been been sentenced to for four years.
Later in life we come to appreciate our high school years, especially if went to a pretty good school.
But I’m not that sure that a rational person would actually want to go back to high school again. Yet time and again, one hears parents tell young people that these years will be “the best years of your lives.”
Gee, why don’t they just give them a razor blade the day after graduation so that they can cut their wrists and be done with it?
I think that we tend to romanticize our school days a little too much. While I loved Zweibrucken American High School in Germany – especially compared to the civilian schools I attended – I’d never want to wake up tomorrow and find myself suddenly back in school.
For one, I was probably one of the nerdiest kids who ever lived. I had bad hair, stupid glasses, wore dorky clothes, and was probably the worst one on the wrestling team.
I won’t even talk about my sad performance on the cross-country team.
There were parts that were glorious. Not only was I the Humor Editor on the school paper, but because of the work study program I was learning how to write “real” journalism on the base newspaper.
I had lots of friends, many of whom I have made contact with again through Facebook.
Zwei High was an intellectually challenging environment, which I have written about here before, and probably will again. Hell, some of our teachers swore in class. How cool was that?
But the best years of my life?
Not by a long shot. High school was like the building blocks of my life, and I give thanks many times that I went to the particular school that I did. But I’ve done a lot more interesting things in life than just go to high school, maniacal reader, and so have you.
Maybe that is what we should be telling these young kids who are so glad to be escaping bondage this month.
Telling them that the walls that have enclosed them for the last few years of their lives are it, there ain’t no more, everything else is downhill from here on in – well, that just shows how many adults have forgotten the day-to-day grind of school and the perpetual insecurities that plague even the most popular students.
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The high school movie fantasy
Some movies have plots about adults returning to younger bodies and attending high school again.
But honestly, if you magically returned to high school knowing everything you know now, you would be insufferable. You’d be ganged up on from everyone from the jocks to the Madrigal Society – of which I was a member, thank you for asking.
Eventually, they’d find your body stuffed in a locker somewhere.
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Oh, Blanche Lambert Lincoln, you do so make my skin crawl
Former Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln is joining a lobbying firm which has clients in the health care and pharmaceutical industries.
Well, I guess she should be rewarded for looking out for their interests, shouldn’t she?
Anyone surprised by this move?
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Quote of the Day
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”~W. B. Yeats
rsdrake@cox.net