In a time long ago and a place fairly far away, I was a senior in high school. I begin in this manner in accordance with warnings about giving away dates and places that will help hackers steal your identity. However, I don’t want our crazy world to keep me from acknowledging one of the groups that misses something very important that cannot be recaptured in their lives this year.
As I look at posts from this year’s seniors by their teachers and themselves, my heart hurts as I recall my own senior year. I had joined my class of twenty-one in my junior year in a small Southern town where almost all of them had been together since first grade. You would have thought that I would have been an outsider just hanging in to finish up school, but that was not the case. They accepted me as one of them.
Already a nerd, I became assistant editor of the newspaper and the school annual and president of the Beta Club. I toodled around town with a friend in her father’s loaner Packard from his mechanic business eating donuts from the bakery and drinking cherry cokes we picked up at the drug store. I played (poorly) Mrs. Jilks in the senior play. There were senior parties all spring with parents entertaining from fine dining to barbecues. All this culminated with the new white organdy dress with lace and tiny pleats under my graduation cap and gown. The surprise scholarship I received from First State Bank paid for my fees and books for the first year of community college with a bit left over for the second year. I can’t fail to mention that it was also during this year when I met another senior from a slightly bigger high school who would become my partner for life.
I’ve done much reminiscing about that year as I have thought about this year’s seniors. I’ve enjoyed seeing creative ways some of them are being celebrated, and I know they have finished most of the education to which they were entitled, taking into account the time that senioritis typically hits. Still, there will be something missing forever in this part of their lives. I’m really sorry that the evil hackers keep us from filling Facebook with our senior pictures, including our own dates and places of graduation as we show our sympathy.
To the seniors, I would like to say I’m truly sorry for all the celebration you will miss, but I congratulate you on the twelve years of accomplishment and hope that life holds great promise when you have conquered this pandemic.