Sheepskin

I’m beginning to see the value of the sexagesimal (base 60) number system used by the ancient Sumerians. I wouldn’t have to face a landmark graduation anniversary for another decade. (The vagaries of life being what they are, I might miss it altogether.) Regrettably, we use a decimal number system, so anniversaries in multiples of 10 hold particular significance for us. On this day 50 (!) – not 50!, which really would be something – years ago I graduated high school. No, it doesn’t feel that long ago… and, yes, it does.

The teen years, largely coinciding with high school, are when we firm up our identities – our sense of self. I’m well aware of Freudian notions of early childhood personality formation (along with more recent developmental theories), and it is true that personality traits visible in childhood are commonly visible in adulthood, too. Yet, the precise way in which those often conflicting traits balance with each other is still in flux in our teens. By the time we graduate high school, however, we almost surely have calibrated our scales: our philosophies may change thereafter and we may (one hopes) continue to learn from experience, but our identities are pretty well established. I don’t think anyone who knew me in 1970 would be surprised meeting me today… aside, that is, from the purely physical observation, “Man, you got old!”

Because high school is such a key period in our lives and because of the “reminiscence bump” (the psychological phenomenon whereby we always remember our teens and 20s better than any years afterward), it looms large in our minds. It is why, weird as it seems from the perspective of adolescents, teen movies and YA (young adult) literature appeal to adults almost as much as to teens. Adults still relate to them, for pieces of us forever remain rooted in high school. The largest consumers of YA fiction, in fact, are actual adults with age 30-44 as the single largest demographic according to Publisher’s Weekly. At my own short story site (Richard’s Mirror) out of 65 stories posted there, 10 have teen protagonists. Ok, one is a student scribe in ancient Assyria (Dressed to the Nineveh) and two are prehistorical, but still… Two stories on the site are nonfiction and recount events in my old high school: Horse Sense and

The Final Conquest.

Saint Bernard’s School was an old-school old school. It was a nominally Episcopalian red brick boys prep school Forms I-VI (grades 7-12) founded in 1900. Total enrollment in any given year was 120 students, give or take a few. The school was steeped in deliberately old-fashioned values and it operated by a “study your Latin and algebra” philosophy. Henry Luce III (Time-Life) chaired the board of trustees. Yet, for all the required neckties and “sirs,” the atmosphere was surprisingly laidback in practice. (Currently named Gill St. Bernard’s, it’s a very different place today: coed, K-12, self-descriptively progressive, and far far more expensive in inflation adjusted terms.)

Back in 1964 my mom asked my sister and me if we wanted to attend St. John’s and St. Bernard’s respectively rather than continue in the public school system about which she had misgivings. My sister, two years older than I, said no because she didn’t want to attend a school with no boys. (Coed private schools existed back then, but they were still the exception rather than the rule, and none was conveniently nearby.) At 11 years old I said yes for the sole reason that the school offered horseback riding as a sport. So one day in the ensuing September, I donned a blue blazer jacket, struggled with a half-Windsor knot, and stepped onto the St. Bernard’s campus. I still remember being utterly lost that first day. (I didn’t think about it at the time, but because of my late-in-year birthday I was the youngest student not only in my Form but on the whole campus.) Six eventful years later came the annoyingly named “Commencement.” It’s a Termination by any proper assessment: calling it a commencement is as eye-roll inducing as those movies that end with the words “The Beginning.”

Is there anything I would say to my 1970 newly graduated self if given the chance via some time warp anomaly? Well, “Buy Intel” of course. I’d offer some relationship advice: particularly what and whom to avoid. I’d also make some remarks about what should and shouldn’t be taken seriously. I doubt I’d listen though. The younger me likely would point out that the older me couldn’t possibly be who I said I was or else I would remember this conversation, QED. Negated by logic, I guess I’d then vanish.

This tune has nothing whatsoever to do with high school or graduation. It just happens to have been the Number 1 song for the week of 12 June 1970 according to Billboard. I still have the vintage vinyl album that contains it. I liked the album in general back then but didn’t care much for this one track. It was inescapable though.