Uncuffing Season, or (Very) Senior Year Photo Day
Since around the middle of May, it seems nearly everyone I know has been either traipsing around Europe (in the case of my musician friends, that’s called being *cough* off on tour *cough*) or experiencing the highs and occasional lows of grad season in America. This year, it was my turn to shepherd my twin sons through the great American rite of passage called high school graduation.
My school district has a nice tradition called the Senior Walk, where graduating high school seniors don their cap and gown and walk the hallways of their former elementary and middle schools to cheers and high fives from the current students. As a bonus, if they like, the grads are allowed to beat up one fourth grader of their choice (of the same gender). OK, just kidding about that. But the twins did do the hallway walk the day before their graduation, along with fellow grads of Pond Springs Elementary, and it was…a moment. (Hey, I’m not crying, you’re crying.) When we went to the middle school, though, it turned out we were three days late and the actual middle school graduation was going on during our visit, so never mind.
No matter, since the boys, along with over 600 of their classmates and a good number of of their relatives, went through the real ceremony the following day in a large event center in Cedar Park that usually hosts concerts, rodeos, hockey and basketball games, and various conventions and expos.
The seniors had been bused in a couple of hours before the ceremony, and according to my son Luka were put in a “warehouse” for holding until the festivities started at noon, not even given rehearsal time in the venue (which, following high school admin logic, was done the day before in the high school’s gym).
After speeches by the student council president, the salutatorian and the valedictorian, and speeches by the superintendent of schools and the principal, the graduates filed up onto the stage in a surprisingly organized manner, and a photographer took a couple of pics of each, one by themselves and one with the principal.
All things considered, it was a seamless couple of hours and a pleasant family get-together; my sister and her husband (who had never met my wife Laura in person before) had flown in from Atlanta for the occasion, and Laura’s mom and sisters joined us for a post-graduation lunch.
A week or so later, I received in the mail a solicitation from a large event photo company offering portraits of my graduates taken on Grad Day, available on “not protected,” laminated, and “pearlized premium paper.” The packages ranged from $169.95 (two 8x10s, five 5x7s and 16 wallets) to $49.95 (one 8x10, four 5x7s), not including optional complexion enhancement or (an upgrade) complexion touch-up, a $44.95 frame for the tassel, or a $56.95 “commencement plaque.” Online, I found that even a single image on a digital file would cost $65, two for $95 and three for $120. Seriously? Laura and I agreed we wouldn’t pay them a dime.
A couple of weeks later, after all the graduation hoo-ha had died down, I realized that I really didn’t have any photos of my own high school graduation back in the dark ages, nor did Laura. So at my urging, we borrowed our sons’ caps and gowns and headed off to their old school for a few photos. (I brought my original diploma from Herricks High on Long Island, as well as my diploma from Boston University.) I’d like to think this was my personal punk rock/D.I.Y. rebellion against the outrageously overpriced event photo companies serving the Graduation Industrial Complex. Take that, and fight the power! (For you old Broadway mavens out there, a few bars of “Rose’s Turn” would be appropriate at this point. Here we are, world!
This year, I’m thinking of June as Uncuffing Season. To be clear, I’m not referring to the end of a relationship-of-convenience among college students during the cold winter months, but the uncuffing of school district handcuffs on not only students but their parents/guardians during the June graduation season. After 13 years, my sons and I had gotten off the school-vacation-school treadmill, which necessitated fitting your year around the school calendar as tightly as a leather cover around your steering wheel. Other schools and stages will come in due time, but for now, we’re reveling in sweet freedom.
Seeing your kids graduate and uncuffing yourselves from school year strictures also has a big effect on the parents and guardians. It also bleeds over into uncuffing expectations on where you should retire, what you should do next, and heck, from other people’s expectations, period.
For the last couple of weeks I’ve grown extremely tired of the ridiculous heat in Texas, the traffic jams on what used to be relatively quiet streets, the constant political garbage, the ersatz nature of American suburbia. Laura and I are seriously planning our final escape in a couple of years back to Slovenia. Just give us a little while to let the marks from the cuffs fade away.
