Walking across the stage

Tom Pinney

Despite what I have written about some of my high school experiences, I thoroughly enjoyed the last four years I was in the public school system.

From the plays to the dances, from driving to speech and debate contests in icy January conditions in northern Ohio to All-State Choir in sunny San Antonio in February, high school was a great time. But, once again, I have to go crap on something big: graduation.

Like with anything, your mileage may vary. However, in my case, I hated my graduation ceremony.

This part may get some of you on board: my graduating class had 538 people in it. You read that right. 538. Five hundred thirty-eight.

Our graduation ceremony lasted three and a half hours. Calling names by itself was about 90 minutes. We had a long-winded commencement speaker who only the administration knew, he wasn’t even an alumnus, and the guy who called the middle 200 names read each name so slowly.

AND HE STILL MESSED MINE UP. I handed him a card with my name printed phonetically, and he still screwed it up.

“Pin-knee” turned into “pine-knee.” Because in central Ohio, they apparently use safety pines instead of safety pins.

But I digress. Three and a half hours in the Schottenstein Center on the Ohio State University campus, because there’s no way we could have fit 538 students, plus parents and teachers, in our gymnasium. 210 minutes in that ridiculous blue polyester robe with the requisite shirt and tie underneath, and I was sitting there, jealous of the girls that got to wear sundresses under their robes.

Not because I wanted to wear a dress, per se, but do you know how much a shirt and tie breathes under a polyester robe? I was dying.

An hour in, and I’m sweating like a pig who just walked into Arby’s during a bacon shortage. Two hours in, and I’ve produced more salt water than the Atlantic Ocean.

I walked across the stage, and I felt like I was a submerged Aquaman.

THEY HAD FANS ONSTAGE. I stopped in the middle of the stage to take in a blast of cooler air.

My family thought I was basking in the glow of finally being done with high school. Nope. I had found the fan.

As soon as I had left the gym floor during the recessional, I unzipped my robe, loosened my tie, and unbuttoned a few buttons on my shirt. Sweet relief.

And then we went outside.

Let me explain something. Central Ohio is technically located in the north, but it’s also a pocket of humidity because of about four rivers that run through different parts of Columbus. And it was early June, and we were going through a bit of a heat spell.

96 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, and 92 percent humidity. No me gusta.

I got hugs from a lot of my friends, who were also sweating, and then my family found me and asked why I had undone everything because they wanted pictures.

No me gusta. Again.

I smiled and posed for a million pictures for the family, then smiled and posed for a few others with friends. But at least for those, they didn’t mind if my robe was unzipped, because theirs were as well.

I know what you’re saying, and you’re absolutely right.

During this graduation season, I went and covered three commencements and one rehearsal here in Nodaway County, and each one was a million times better than mine.

For one, you could feel the A/C in those gymnasiums. But each ceremony was also much shorter, and in a lot of ways, very heartfelt.

You could feel a lot of love in the Nodaway-Holt gymnasium, as their superintendent regaled the audience and the graduates with tales from the past 13 years at Nodaway-Holt as she gets ready to leave for Tarkio. A class of 20 had a crowd of close to 250 cheering them on and applauding their accomplishment – a true sense of community.

The same goes for both Jefferson and North Nodaway. You could bet only about half of the people in those gyms had students graduating, but each and every one of them was proud to see the kids of their community graduate.

Maryville celebrated its awards ceremony a few days before graduation to brag about how the Class of 2017 was receiving somewhere in the neighborhood of $400,000 in scholarships and awards to continue their education. You could feel that communal sense of pride, and I bet it was pretty awesome to see graduation on Sunday.

I wasn’t at any other ceremonies this season, but I bet the feeling in those was just about the same.

Nodaway County seniors, I envy your graduation experience. Mine felt very much like it was going through the motions, like no one on Earth actually wanted to be there, like the whole thing was an exercise for the sake of tradition.

Our awards ceremony was a gala event, with nice dresses and a delicious meal, but we treated it as if it was inevitable that our kids were going to go and do great things. We took for granted the fact that we had smart and talented kids, and everything felt so routine.

Every one of you had a graduation that felt like a celebration. Your schools knew that, even though your success is inevitable, it’s still worth celebrating with as much gusto as possible.

During those ceremonies, the love was tangible, the feeling of community visible, the pride contagious.

Once again, your mileage may vary.

Don’t take this feeling for granted, because it won’t last forever. The real world can be harsh, unforgiving, impersonal, and very humid.

But this group has a ton of talent and potential, and I’m excited for a few years down the line when I’m writing about the awesome things the Class of 2017 has done in the world.

Congratulations, Class of 2017. May the wind be ever at your sails and the hail stay away from your windshields.

Tom Pinney is a news reporter for the Maryville Daily Forum