Graduating from what? To what?

I'll remember always ...
Graduation dayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

I know it's high school graduation day because I saw the limos parked along the street when I came back from shopping mid-afternoon.

That's right. This is high school graduation; not college, not university, just bloody high school. Meaning not to be cynical at all, but why is this an event worth commemorating? I mean, it seems to me these days that you surely must graduate simply by attending a certain minimal number of classes during your three years. Other than that, there's not so much to mark, as I see it. I don't think there was ever so much to mark. You will end up with some sort of certificate that will tell the world you put in your time -- that is, unless you pulled down a stunning GPA. Otherwise, Wal-Mart and Home Depot await, kids.

When I graduated from high school, shortly after the end of the Hundred Years War, nobody made much of a deal out of it. My parents certainly didn't, considering my amazingly shitty performance over the previous 36 months of my life. More time devoted to fruitless lust, rather than equally fruitless logarithms. But, otherwise, some guys bought new $69,95 suits, and go haircuts, and girls got nice little dresses -- possibly costing more than $69.95, but not much -- and sported either flowers or little tiaras in their hair. They looked very nice. Zits amazingly gone, as a little victory for Clearasil, and a certain patina of self-conscious sophistication. We then wandered up past assorted school board types (none of whom we knew, or cared to know), got a handshake and a curled bit of paper from the asshole who had passed himself off as our principal -- no, my regard for him wasn't adolescent spleen, he truly was a world-class asshole -- and that was about it. I think there was a cliche-ridden valedictory speech, and a stultifying speech by some other guy who nobody knew, and who was probably a friend of the asshole principal's. Then we had a dance, after which probably many people got drunk and puked on themselves, and virtually nobody got lucky. At least, I didn't. And, that was about it. The following Monday it was off to the crappy summer job, and grad was forgotten about virtually in an instant. That, to me, is as it should be.

But now! My heavens. I've already mentioned the limos. What about the dresses that must be purchased for daughter? This is a very big deal, and a very big expense. Seventeen-year-old girls want to be decked out in Versace originals, and God forbid that somebody has the same thing. "A designer original, Mom. That's what I want, a designer original!" And Moms, who have frantically been running around and incontinently turning their undies amber with the stress, are desperately trying to oblige because, there is no way my kid is going to be upstaged by the daughter of that shyster lawyer across the street. Dads, meanwhile, are wondering if they really can swing a third mortgage, and instantly feel the ulcer kick into action, when they realize that there are two more daughters just down the pipeline, and once grad is done, there will be weddings in the future. "Why, oh why wasn't I more serious about that vasectomy?"

Parents of boys don't get off quite as badly, but there are still outfits well beyond the ancient $69.95 to be purchased. And, no, 'not the family car. Not my car. Can I rent a limo, or maybe your could rent a Beemer ragtop and let me use it. '

And, so it goes. And it's farcical. And what about the po' folk. Are their kids to be left with even less self-esteem than they already have from living in the trailer park? Well, I guess they are. And it's all in the name of graduation from bloody high school.

Are the kids to blame? Only in the sense that they are young and susceptible to our bullshit. The bullshit of parents. The bullshit of schools, The bullshit of advertising that tells them what they must have and cannot live without.

Well, as a friend said, let them have their moment of glory. The real world awaits, and that is not always a pretty sight. If they do get into a decent college or university, the grad at the end of that will be truly inconsequential, since then the 'real world' they've deferred will genuinely hit them between the eyes.