Re-visiting Anson High School for the 2007 Commencement

Considering my NCSSM graduation a week ago, I’m not sure whether that graduation or Anson’s was surreal. Keep in mind, Anson County is where I was born and raised until two years ago when I ended up in Durham. I’ve attended past Anson High graduations, not at all dissimilar to the one I attended today, with no frame of reference. So I guess it is just now occurring to me that there are few feasible realities in which these two graduations can coexist.

I arrived at the rapidly-filling football field bleachers at about 8:00. Earlier that morning the sky was a shade of grey that made me wonder if I needed to bring an umbrella or scope out a seat with an easy escape route, but now it was managing to be sunny. Good. The pair of speakers on stage, unfortunately, could not quite handle the piano concerto that was blasted as we were seating. Whenever there were too many notes played too fast or too loudly the speakers produced mixture of feedback and static that I thought was almost fashionably punk but I don’t think they were going for that. The class of 2007 processed onto the field to a rendition of Pomp and Circumstance with a climatic high chord that didn’t quite make it. The piece was also accompanied by the vocals a woman standing near me who had already started screaming madly for Rashaawn.

As the principal and master of pronunciation introduced Jamie, who was to give the “valetory address,” the wind was picking up, driving the American and North Carolina flags on stage wild, and distant thunder sounded. Great. Meanwhile, the woman in front of me had taken the last picture on her camera which started whirring angrily and the person behind me continued to use some device that could have been a phone, camera, or gigapet that beeped, rang and –now, I could be mistaken –mooed.

The guest speaker for this year’s commencement was the superintendent.

Before the presentation of the diplomas the principal reminded us to keep this “the dignified ceremony it is.” This was met with light chuckles scattered ominously through the crowd.

Most students’ names were met with what were unmistakably war cries. Rashaawn also got a full paragraph screamed by his mother, including the line “and then the lord looked unto Rashaawn and it was GOOD!” One girl’s name was greeted with a bicycle horn. You know, the kind clowns sometimes use.

I almost felt obligated to scream something for the students whose families were either quiet or absent. Shame on me for not doing so.

The recessional was a combination of people standing respectfully to another indie-punk piano concerto and people running down the stands who wanted to get out before the parking lot got “CRAAAZY.”

Well, that was commencement, and I feel like a twat now so I’ll leave it at that.