A Note from Obscurity

After attending my 20th year high school reunion this past May I took the requisite trip down memory lane. While mine was considerably less strewn with burned out recollections, I thought it befitting to acknowledge the occassion in my own way--with words of course. If you're wondering why the odd colors in the title, those were our school colors.

   June 6th, 1982. Over 400 graduates sat awaiting the diploma they'd reached for since birth. Some because they really wanted it, others simply to fulfill some societal mandate. All, because they'd earned it. Each one harboring their own unique vision of what the future may hold. The sweet release of the educational system filled us. The latent lion of uncertainty lay waiting amongst the tall, obscuring grass of the future. Father Time left us to our devices.

    Almost twenty years later (shy by weeks) some of us gather in a ritual borne of curiosity labeled as tradition. Monica Ortiz spoke to us of hardship, friendship, and lessons learned. Her speech was clearly from the heart and entirely genuine. If I may be so bold I'd like to throw in my two cents worth.

   Most of you likely don't remember me, and that's fine. Obscurity and anonymity can be rewarding in and of themselves. I'd rather be comfortable in my own skin than attempt to live in one fitted more for popularity. But I digress. I'm not writing this to announce my existence. As I sat and watched classmates mingle and reminisce it occurred to me that so much has happened in the last two decades.

   When we were in school 8 tracks were on their way out and cassettes were the preferred method of carrying around our music. Vinyl had no idea what was in store for it. I doubt any of us knew what Target was, but we sure as hell knew of FedMart. We were flush with our victory over the Russion Olympic hockey team, frankly, we whooped ass! The only people fiddling around with tiny packets of electronic information were Army engineers. The rest of us still bought stamps and sent mail the old-fashioned way. Things were to slowly change right under our noses.

   I'd bet most of us have CD players in our vehicles now, and the vehicles themselves have come a long ways. Now we not only have Target but Walmart, Costco, Sam's Club, etc. Our music has largely gone from being something that meant something to something used to sell products back to us. Don't even get me started on the processsed commercial stuff that litters the shelves today--that would be editorializing. The Olympics have gone from being a largely amateur athletic affair to a professional, glitzy grudge match hashed out by highly paid athletes. And I think nothing has become so ubiquitous so fast as e-mail and the internet. Now, sit back for a moment and consider all that happened in-between all of this . . .

    What has each of us accomplished in the last twenty years? I don't mean compared to all that stuff above. I mean look at where we've been since that night in 1982. Many of us went to college. Some of us got married. Most of us have children. Ah yes, the children. Look at what we try to teach them as parents. Perhaps the same things our own parents tried to instill in us. Guess what gang, our kids are going to do the same things, in principle, that we did that annoyed our parents. Let them be human, but certainly guide them. We thought we knew it all back then. Could we have been more mistaken?

    Through our children we continue to learn, to grow. They teach us and we teach them. Sometimes we miss the simple beauty of the symbiosis we have between child and parent. And perhaps just as important, the understanding we have of ourselves and our own history as individuals. How many of us have fallen in love and won the game? How many have lost and only now are struck by the hope of some harmony to gently feed our sorrows. Seems there are many among our group who chose nurturing paths and became nurses and dieticians. Others of us choose to handle life as it comes at us, while still others have a carefully laid out game plan. Underneath it all, I respectfully submit, is the whisper of the heart.

    That same heart has seen us through both individual and national tragedies. It's the same heart that always seems to bring us back to what's important. We may strive for riches or recognition. We may even sneak in an attempt to relive past glory. But nothing brings us around like the indomitable human spirit. Nothing but the heart can truly rip us apart or bond us together. And in the end, it is eventually through the heart which we learn our lessons.

    So I say to you all, look where your heart was some twenty years ago on that warm June evening. Then look at all you've accomplished up to now. See that while we've all been tested, there but for the grace of God go we. We laugh, cry, fear, love...as all humans should. We moved on as a class of high school graduates having fulfilled our educational requisites. We stepped out into the savanna of life, ever watchful for the lion waiting in the tall grass.

   Here's to keeping our hearts on our futures, and our heads above the tops of the grass.