“I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it.” Jonathan Winters
***
It’s May, graduation time, when our educational systems turn out their inmates to the general public. Beware –everything is in danger of change.
Everywhere they stand, waiting for the final exhortation of great wisdom from the commencement speaker. Then, in collective unison, the graduates in a shared exhalation of relief fling mortar board caps high into the heavens, high with ambitions, hopes and dreams. They then float to the ground like so much academic confetti, waiting for fulfillment.
So, Graduates, what’s next? Life, that’s what. Join the crowd.
Walker Percy wrote, “(in) spite of the great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.” Will our new graduates solve the riddle?
Back to the future, May 31, 1955, the last day of school. We were graduating from the 8th grade, moving ahead. No more visits to ‘the office’ where infractions, small or great, were mediated with a wooden paddle, a crude but ‘corrective’ device. Apparently, we needed to understand who we were, long before the confusion of gender entered the scene.
My father tried to mediate things before they got out of hand, telling the teacher, “Honey, the boy is just not right.” He always called ladies ‘Honey.’ Either he couldn’t remember their names, or there was something more going on. Our town coined the concept of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ It saved me from being beaten within an inch of my life. Threats were always measured in inches in those days. The reasoning remains obscure.
But here we are on a sultry South Georgia morning, hot and humid. A group of us sit outside on the back steps of the library, beating off boredom. We dust the felt erasers on the brick walls and on each other’s heads. Imbeciles do this.
Rectangular white remnants on the red bricks are our rebellious graffiti. The chalk marks are what remain of black-board wisdom the teachers had tried to cram into our granite-crusted brains. All dust. Metaphors are alien concepts to the young.
Students today don’t have to endure the chore of dusting erasers. It’s white-board or digital now. With one click of a keystroke another year is instantly deleted, sent hurtling into cyber space. We threw erasers at one another…iPads are more valuable than erasers.
We pass the time waiting for the final bell to ring, signaling that school is over for the year. Summertime. Sweet freedom. I’m 13, graduating from the 8th grade, soon to be in the bottom class of high school. I wonder what the future holds.
Time marches on. On another hot day in May 1960. It’s my high school graduation. It’s tough to figure who’s the happiest, teachers or students. My best friend and I drive the open-air jeep with no seat belts down to the creek to swim. It’s a bittersweet day. One thing’s over, another begins. Now we’re about to become college freshmen. The bottom again, the future is still a mystery.
College graduation ends in May, too. Somehow, I pop out of the Higher Ed pipeline and emerge in the ‘real world.’ I toast with beer, not a swim. The bright lights of the big city beckon. The diploma is my meal ticket to a fabulous future. So I think. Only I’m in the bottom of the next class—the Job Market. I keep wondering why the future is so out of reach.
In time the crisp diploma yellows. It’s relegated to a scrapbook. Nobody cares about it anymore. I move ahead without it. The realities of life come calling…. job, marriage, children and mortgages. Summer vacations become occasional weekend escapes. The barefoot summers of youth vanish. I keep wondering what has happened to the future I envisioned.
The years come and go. Age slows some things down, but life gains clarity. The fond memories of graduations give pause and allow me to savor how things were in a quieter time. But even now the future remains at best a diffused mirror, uncertain of what’s looking back at you.
It’s funny, now that I think about it, that this one particular day remains fresh in my memory. The dust of those erasers held the essence of an entire school year. With a few slaps on the wall, it’s gone. Poof. Vanished. Over. The whole year, wiped clean.
Much has changed since that May in 1955. Percy’s comment is still unfulfilled. The red-brick school of my 8th grade has disappeared. Only memories remain.
***
It was a long time ago when we dusted erasers there. We wondered about the future, only to now discover that it ends in dust, just like residue of those erasers, and too soon. Much too soon.
Bud Hearn
June 10, 2023