Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom (And Whimsy)

Posted on July 24, 2024 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with 3 comments

How the years fly by

 

“There’s a time for joy,

A time for tears,

A time we’ll treasure through the years,

We’ll remember always,

Graduation day. “

Graduation Day – The Four Freshmen

It’s reunion season.

We are just a few weeks removed from high school graduations celebrated across the country. Young people, brimming with confidence, crossed the stage, staring off into the future and endless possibilities. The first rite of passage in the books.

Do you remember your graduation?

I was part of the very last graduating class of Antigonish High School in 1970. We were a small group – 62. I have been carrying around our Graduation Exercises program for 54 years now. Some of my classmates were brilliant students. Some excelled at sports. We were debaters, singers, cheerleaders, members of student council, writers for our yearbook.

My most vivid and lasting memory of grad night was a gathering at my parents’ house on Hillcrest where several of my classmates came to enjoy one last singalong together. Well into the festivities, my dad entered the living room with a single bottle of beer which was shared amongst those in the room. “One bottle of beer on the wall…”

Every year around this time, grads of our beloved AHS gather at a local pub to reminisce, revel, regale and reconnect. We don’t move as quickly as we once did. There are a lot of nuts and bolts and titanium holding us together but the glue that binds us all is friendship and laughter. We are a collection of old folks looking in the rear-view mirror but still treasuring what we have.

Years of successes, failures, love lost, and love found, grief and pain etched on the lines of our faces.

Stories, stories and more stories.

For a few hours, we deposited our aching bodies (most of us have at least one body part that has given up on us) at the entrance of the pub’s patio and talked about those halcyon days when our only care in the world was finding the right dance partner for the last waltz at the Parish Center.

In the absence of name tags this year, much of the time after arriving was spent trying to figure out who everybody was. Most of us have changed our looks over the past 50+ years which is hardly a surprise.

Of course, there’s always a lot of catching up to do. What has everyone been doing all these years? Children, grandchildren, employment, births, deaths. Once these details have been dispensed with, we start to talk about our alma mater. The stories are heartwarming and funny.

The owners of the pub know their audience well. With the Brierly Brook gurgling in the background, the speakers churn out hit after hit from the 1960s. The smiles on the faces says it all. We are with our tribe. “Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase)”. While the original tribe sadly continues to thin out, the addition of children and grandchildren ensures that our legendary stories of smoking under the Brierly Brook bridge, sitting on the railing outside the Alleys, or going to the Saturday night dances (fights!) at the Parish Center will remain long after we have “slipped the surly bonds of earth”.

Now, most of us know our tribe so when a few people from the county school arrived at our gathering, a few eyebrows were raised. Back in the day, there were fierce rivalries between the “townies” and the “country hicks”. There are two adjoining patios at Piper’s. I knew these folks. They were lovely people.  I wasn’t expecting a melee to break out with their appearance. I decided to broker a peace deal. Toting a cold bottle of Alexander Keith’s finest, I approached their table. One of the people at the table had recently lost her husband and this trio had just come from a wake at one of the local funeral homes. They had endured enough sadness lately and banishing them didn’t seem the right thing to do. They were quite surprised to see so many people at the pub on a Tuesday afternoon. I jokingly suggested that they could move to the upper patio!

We laughed and laughed some more. We hugged. We said our goodbyes.

Until we meet again.

“When the ivy walls,

Are far behind,

No matter where our paths may wind,

We’ll remember always,

Graduation day.”

Have a great weekend