Time to Move On

I graduated from High School on June 7th, 1994, at a small farm town high school. There were 44 members of the senior class. I can honestly say that the processional was quick and no one had to listen to “The Land of Hope and Glory” more than they had to. The ceremony would have been great; with our class colors, flowers, the décor, a couple of speeches and some special music…tragically, the “special music” was by me.

Oh I had it all planned out in my head in almost perfect precision. I had signed up to perform a song I wrote, well, more like a poem read to the accompaniment of music and I had my timing down to the second that I felt, eh, I don’t have to actually practice a few days before in the gym.
Yeah, it turned out about as good as you could think because, I lost my concentration while I was on stage. I mean, the “movie of my high school years” was going though my mind as I looked at the people in the crowd and at the members of my class who weren’t staring into space or had their heads bowed in impatient as I was holding up the diplomas, which meant I was holding up their freedom and the time until the kegger later on. The one I was not invited to, but not that it mattered as we were moving to another town the next day.

So, the poetry reading crashed and burned, perhaps it was not for the best that I tried something so experimental. Tragically, someone probably videotaped it and could one day pull it up on their phone at a class reunion that I probably would not attend for that very reason. We listened to the salutatorian, valedictorian and the special guest speaker before we all walked across the stage and received our diplomas. I wanted to think it was a great thing: a door into greatness!
College!
A career!
Maybe a tattoo!
A house and a family with two-point five kids.

The sky was the limit.

On that day, I left the small town of Reardan, Washington for what would we be the second to last time and travelled with my family to the town of Columbus, Mississippi.

The trip took about a week and I spent most of it in the back seat of our family’s Ford Explorer with my little sister and her box of toys; and myself with my CD player, a stack of discs and a plethora of batteries because, well, CD players at that time sucked.

[In case you were curious: here is the song “I” (yes, this is kind of autobiographical, all of my stories are in a way) used]

https://youtu.be/JfSSQ3Vejao