Commencement

I’ve been thinking lately about everyday sights that we see without noticing. For me, a fairly obscure building tucked under the water tower by the courthouse usually escapes my attention, but it has the power to be downright ahhh-inducing when it catches me in one of those oh-yeah-that’s-where-I moments. My one trip through those doors was to pick up graduation announcements from a now-defunct printshop that once occupied the building. That box of still-damp ink touched off a string of heady days in the spring of 1977 that signaled the beginning of the end of high school. And presents. Ahhh-inducing indeed.

I realize now, though, that the HHS graduation exercise of 77 wasn’t the beginning of the end for me. It was the beginning of the beginning: a commencement in the truest sense of the word. In a few hours, I’ll yet again enter Lion Stadium to the strains of “Henderson Festival March.” Commencing one more time.

Even if I can’t say that donning coat and tie for an outdoor June event tops my “Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens” list, I always get a vicarious sense of satisfaction and accomplishment as I follow the bobbing mortarboards around the track. Oh, I can step far enough away from my inherent narcissism to know that eyes will focus on the current graduates rather than the huddle of faculty members skulking behind, but the experience is still valuable. At a time when my middle-aged conservatism wars against Change, Upset, and All Things New, I’ve come to look forward to an annual reminder that our walk along the longer track is nothing more than a series of commencements, of beginnings-again. Just without the presents.