Graduation Mayberry Style

There are some who will read this post and will feel this familiar scene brought to the forefront of remembrance.  Some of you will have no basis of familiarity.  You may think, “how quaint” or you might lean more towards “how redneck!”  It is for both of ends of the spectrum that I write this.  For the under thirty crowd, Mayberry is a fictitious, idyllic town from the old television series, The Andy Griffith Show.

Last Friday night was our high school’s commencement ceremony.  Eight young adults wobbled down a freshly papered centered aisle to the stage, grinning, nervous, and trying to keep that darn tassel out of their mouths.  No, I did not mean to say six hundred, or even sixty.  I did indeed purposefully type the lonely digit “six.”  This year’s class was fairly average-sized for our rural school.

Son #3 tells the story of a freshman year encounter where he was asked the inevitable question of how many were in his graduating class.  His uninhibited reply was “four.”  Without blinking an eye, his co-conversationalist said, “Oh, that’s not a bad sized class.”  Knowing what this individual was thinking, Cody quickly corrected him.  “No, I don’t mean four HUNDRED.  I mean four.  That’s it, just four.”  The other party was flabbergasted, as the story goes. 

To further those fun Class of 2010 facts (you never know when this trivia might come in handy); the class was comprised of two boys and two girls (prom could have been a double date), and for the senior class photo shoot, they were all able to go in one car.  Also, there were awards-aplenty to go around.  Not only was our son, Cody, Valedictorian, he was also numbers 76-100 in class rankings.  Holy cow, that sounds impressive on a college application!

Back to this year. 

You may be wondering how long a class of eight (or four) could possibly take to go through the ritual ceremonies of graduation.  You might be surprised.  We can stretch that sucker out like a TV evangelist pleading for money.  Handing out diplomas takes no time at all.  We would barely have time to warm our folding chairs if that is all we did.  So we have a few closely held traditions that make up the other fifty-seven and a half minutes of the program.

I will share a few of them here:

One of the most cherished is the reading of the class history.  I mean a literal reading of the class history, kindergarten through twelfth grade.  This annual rite recites the names of the kids that began kindergarten in our school and lists the classmates that came and went down through the years.  There are always one or two original band members that spent their entire academic careers in the same group.  This is part of the beauty of a small K-12 school.  We are more extended family than mere strangers coincidently lumped into a classroom.  You can often see heads nodding during this time and hear whispered, “Oh, I had forgotten about him.  That’s right, he WAS here in the fourth grade...”  The class history is just that.  It reminds us of who we are and where we came from.

Another tradition, and my personal favorite, is the honoring of the parents.  The class chooses an appropriate song, usually something about wind beneath wings or love, or undying support, and one by one, the seniors pluck a flower from a vase and head down into the audience to acknowledge his or her parents.  The mother is generally handed the flower and usually gets a hug too.  Depending on whether the graduate is male or female will predetermine what happens next.  The graduating female has usually begun to cry on the first note of the song, which sends rivers of water down her mother’s face as well.  She and her mother will hug warmly, smearing sloppy tears and mascara all over one another, then giggle at what saps they each are.  “Daddy” will get an equally warm, teary hug, and doggonit if he doesn’t have a little moisture in his eyes as well.

Now if the senior is a male, things will run a little differently here.  He will clomp over to the vase and grab the flower like it’s the playground bully and he’s gotta’ show it just who is in charge around here.  He will then stomp noisily down the stage steps, holding the poor flower parallel to the ground, praying to God that his mother won’t make a gushy embarrassment of things.  When he locates his parents, he’ll shove the already-drooping flower into his mother’s hand, and may or may not give her a quick yer-alright-fer-a-gurl hug.  Now the next few moments are crucial in Macho World.  Should he hug his dad or not?  He can’t really decide until he’s in the moment.  Will the entire world that is stuffed into a sweaty gymnasium think he’s a Nancy if he gives ‘ol dad a coupla slaps on the back??  Some risk their masculine ranking and give the hug.  Others decide it is just simply not worth it.  Usually a handshake is called for in such cases.  This is considered an acceptable (and in some cases) preferable show of affection. 

As a parent who has watched three sons graduate from this high school, there is nothing that softens my mother’s heart more that watching my boy grab that flower and head towards his father and I with that “aw shucks” look on his face.  Three times I have melted into my son’s arms and been overwhelmed with that simple gesture.  For it is more than a flower and more than a ritual.  It is the symbolism of a child beginning to understand that parenting is a monumental task and that all that we do as parents is borne out of this unquenchable love we have for our offspring. 

They cannot really understand all of that yet.  No, of course they cannot.  Not until they are parents themselves.  We all know that.  But is it a first step towards that awareness.  It is a beautiful moment ripe with meaning.  It is the unspoken knowing by all parties that they are no longer children, but adults ready to leave you.  And for the record, my sons always hugged their dad too. 

The third anticipated ritual is the “Senior at a Glance” picture montage.  Well, there are twenty-five extra minutes to kill, so let’s drag out the old photo albums.  You can do that when there are only a handful of seniors, after all.  While the graduate’s favorite song plays, a power point slide show features each graduate from infancy through their senior year.  There are the usual baby shots and some edgy youth may throw in the potty training shot for giggles (and gets them).  And, of course, there are Christmases and favorite vacations.  And when it is over, we have a better idea of who these kids are and where they came from.  Sometimes the parents are divorced and the shots are painful reminders of a painful time.  Occasionally, a deceased parent is flashed on the screen and then the tears really flow as we grieve anew communally.

When Son #2 graduated, the mother of a classmate who had been killed in a car accident arrived at the graduation ceremony.   We were thrilled to see her and saddened to remember that her sweet baby should have been standing there proudly along with the rest.  This poor woman had lost her husband as well on that day and her son had been severely injured.  It had been a shock to our small community that left us all reeling.  To our wonderment, at a given spot in the program, this mother walked unsteadily to the podium that night and addressed the graduates. 

This mother, whose world had collapsed in a single day, with soft voice but strong resolve, looked at the classmates of her daughter and told them that the same year her daughter had died, she had made a decision to do something for the class of 2007.  She had taken a portion of her death benefits and had invested them wisely.  It had been accruing money all of those years.  Her daughter was only in the fourth grade on that horrible day.  “And now, I want you to have it,” she told a shocked line of seniors.  “Use it to further your education, or better yourself in some way.”  She had kept it a secret all of those years.  Each senior received several thousand dollars, the amount depending on the number of years that senior had attended school with her daughter. 

I gasped as I heard her words and saw the stunned looks on the faces of those rugged boys.  I heard my gasp echoed all around me.  Tears stung my eyes as I realized what this money signified.  She could not help her daughter with college, but she could help those that had known her.  It was such a poignant moment that I am filled with emotion even after all these years.  Such generosity borne out of such devastating sorrow is philanthropy that is forever seared into memory. 

Ryan is in dental school now.  Her generosity made a positive difference in his life.

And, as in any graduation ceremony, there are also scholarships announced, and speeches given; you know… the usual stuff.  Afterward, the graduates form a line, outside if the weather permits, and the entire community walks by and shakes each hand and offers warm congratulations.  Then the individual parties begin and these are just as utterly charming.

The really forward-thinking graduates claim the lunchroom as their territory.  The other possible choices in town for gatherings are the Senior Center and the town theater building. 

Now I know you are trying to picture a theater that can double as a reception hall.  You are thinking all wrong, my friend.  This is not a slanted-floor, surround sound, fixed theater seat building.  Well, we do have surround sound, I guess.  Surround sound for us means when Granny sitting on the back church pew can’t hear a line, her grandson shouts it into her hearing aid, and thus the back 4 rows get to hear it again. 

No, this is the OLD gymnasium, with original hard wood floor and stage still intact.  The chairs stack and the church benches in the back are shoved to the side walls.  The downside to this building is, there is no real kitchen, so all hot food must come in electric roasters.  But I have used this building for a graduation myself, and you make do.  Everyone understands your challenges. 

On mild spring nights, such as this year was, Main Street is alive with party goers headed to their destinations.  Usually, nearly everyone is invited to nearly every party, so you choose where you will begin and then make your rounds.  By the time you have hit the last one on the roster, you are so loaded with roast beef, butter cream frosting, and pink punch, you are nearly comatose.  This year I had the culinary pleasures of Philipino dishes and the best darn crab salad in the universe.  I think I have probably had dreams about that crab salad since that night.

I held my husbands’ hand as we walked Main Street and smiled.  It is such a safe little haven.  Community children roam freely, knowing their parents will find them eventually.  Laughter can be heard from the next block over.  For a city girl, I sure love small town living.  It is irreplaceable and dwindling.  What will my town look like in ten years?  Or twenty-five or fifty?  In case you live in a steamer trunk and have not heard, North Dakota is in the middle of an historic oil boom.  Think California gold rush in the 1800’s.  It is changing the face of our state so fast it is dizzying.  It is not all bad, of course, but change is indisputable and undeniable.  Whether the locals like it or not, North Dakota will be forever altered from this time forward. 

Whatever the future holds, I hope that my town will hang tenaciously onto its charming graduation rituals.  I hope my grandchildren get to experience them someday.  I hope my very own real-life Mayberry resists the outside influences for a while longer.  I hope Senior at a Glance and Class History are carried forth, however new technology makes that possible.  I hope little boys in big boy bodies still clomp down the stairs clutching flowers for their mommies, like tots who proudly lay dandelions at their mother’s feet.  I hope the more things change the more they stay the same. 

I hope Mayberry keeps its charm for awhile longer...