Happy Graduation Season

Congrats to Miss OOP!

 

I hated high school. Didn't like the people, wasn't challenged. I was ready to leave 6,000-population small town Kansas and go DO SOMETHING. I've blocked out most of my high school graduation ceremony - other than remembering how ungodly hot it was to be stuck in a gymnasium on a day that it was 95 degrees with no air conditioning - other than this:

The last kid to walk across the stage at my graduation was a kid named Tanner. Tanner was developmentally disabled, but the nicest kid. The kind of kid who knew everyone's name and gave everyone high fives in the hallway. I don't even think it was really planned at all, but when they announced his name, my entire class stood up and gave him a standing ovation and started chanting his name and WE all gave him a high five as he ran past us back to his seat. (Apparently, his mom was absolutely bawling when we did this.) He's one of those who was never going to be able to go to college or live independently, so I'm glad, however impromptu it was, that we made that day really special for him.

 

At my daughter's high school, the Down boy, Trevor, was elected Homecoming King. He got more votes than the other four candidates combined. Like Tanner, Trevor high-fives everybody all the time. He now has two jobs. He is the greeter outside the Team Store at Angel Stadium and Honda Center. Everybody knows him, he knows everybody. A very uplifting person.

 

Thanks. I really can't believe she's graduating high school. She is in a singing group at her school. Most of the performances this year were wiped out by the pandemic, but they had one outside today. She has always been jittery about solos, but she sang "Maybe This Time" and damn near had me in tears. I've never really heard her belt one out in public like that. I've certainly never heard her sound that much like an adult. I think that moment got to me more than the actual graduation will.