Graduation

Forgive me for being a little indecisive this morning about my story. I've had a bad week. Not only did Lizzie, our 13-year-old Great Pyrenees, fall climbing the stairs, resulting in her NOT climbing the stairs for two days, but my older brother also passed away, losing his battle with cancer on my Mother's birthday.

Although my brother is pain-free, the pain of the ones left behind will never totally go away. Fishing with their dad, grandfather, and great-grandfather is gone. Talking on the phone, gone. RIP Doug.

(I did write about Doug earlier this week on the website. It would make me happy if you read it.)

Next year, Elaine and I will "celebrate" a milestone anniversary of our high school graduation. While Elaine and I did not graduate together, after attending the first two years of high school together. I didn't know her the first year. We were hanging with different cliques from different sides of the tracks. One of her friends started liking one of my friends and I met Elaine. She couldn't keep her eyes and hands off me. This is my story and I'm telling it. Anything else you have heard is not true.

In our senior year, due to the influx of Iowans, Californians, and Texans, our town opened a new high school. Because Elaine and I were from different sides of the tracks, she stayed at one high school, I went to the new one.

While in our senior year, Elaine made a decision that continues to haunt her to this day. She ran for senior-class president. She won. I don't know what she was thinking at the time. Maybe she thought being president, would someday enable her to shield her son from tax evasion and gun charges. It didn't work for drug charges, just sayin'.

I don't know if she knew winning would make her part of planning class reunions for the next hundred-twenty-four years. Even though even voting for class president was something I would not have done, I find myself "helping" plan next year's reunion.

So far, the committee has had one planning meeting which was last week. It worked out pretty well for me. Elaine had a lot to do with picking the venue, which was a restaurant I enjoy. I didn't even care when a person on the committee reminded me that chicken-fried steak could cause heart disease. Good God, it is the state food of Texas.

I'm not sure if we accomplished anything, but we agreed to meet again.

As I have implied, I am not sure why am involved anyway. I guess, with my Mom having passed away years ago, I am free to admit I almost didn't graduate. As I remember it, about two weeks before graduation, my counselor came to me with a problem. It seems I was short some English credits, hours, or whatever.

The counselor, Mr. Himmler, that may not have been his name but it was something like that, asked me if it was important that I graduate.

Me: Well, I don't really want to tell my mom I not going to.

Mr Himmler: Well, we can make this work.

Me: What do I need to do?

Himmler: You will write a thousand-word essay and turn it in before school ends.

Me: On what?

Himmler: You decide.

I wrote that essay and graduated. Can you imagine a thousand-word essay with every paragraph starting with the word Michelangelo? That's a lot of typing. About five paragraphs in, I stopped writing the word Michelangelo and started writing "Mike". Elaine, my proofreader was furious! "You can't just write Mike!" She was wrong.

I have a diploma. Mom never knew. Now here I am decades later, wondering if I should have just disappointed Mom and leave the meetings to others.

Do you suppose Michelangelo, the Great. was the first Mumbling?

Our crazy lives!

Monner