The end of a school year brings up a lot of memories.  Recently I have encountered high school juniors and seniors in formal dress, on their way to fancy proms.  One local school held their prom at South Fork Ranch, the setting of the Dallas TV series, and some of the kids were chauffeured to and from the event in a stretch limousine.

We didn’t have a prom at my high school in 1960, but I got talked into escorting a former classmate to her prom at another school the year before.  Big mistake.

To tell the truth all I remember of that evening is the trip home, when we collided with a deer that caved in the passenger door of our family car.  My date and I were unhurt and the car remained drivable. 

Fortunately for me, about a month later, the car got bumped by a road grader and the contractor paid for all repairs.

 We didn’t have a prom, but the senior trip was a big thing at my high school. We had raised enough money to cover all expenses for a trip by school bus as far west as Wolf Creek Pass in Colorado.  The scenery was spectacular, and the whole trip was a valuable learning experience.  I ate my first rainbow trout.  We stayed at Best Western motels, and as class president, I had to sign all the traveler’s checks.
Baccalaureate and commencement exercises came before the trip, of course, but were not memorable in 1960.  A decade later I came back to Leon to give a commencement address. I hope nobody remembers that.  One of my fellow professors later told me that his honorarium for one of those talks was paid in quarters from the school’s Coke machine.
By the time I was asked to give another commencement speech (for a local high school), it was clear to me that what the speaker said would not be remembered.  So I came up with three pithy points and identified them as red, white and blue (not one, two, three). That brought me some nice compliments from a few older folk. By the way, my modest honorarium was paid by check.

When I commenced from Texas A&M, we graduates all stood up together and were pronounced alumni.  Austin College (AC), where I taught for forty years, being a small college (around 250-300 graduates each May), each graduate’s name is called and s/he walks across the stage to be handed a diploma by the college president and have a photograph taken.

AC also has a tradition of inviting the graduating class of 50 years ago to return for a reunion dinner, receive a new diploma, and take part in a reminiscence session.  I help with the reminiscences, and this year some of the 1962 alumni recalled their serving dinner to member of the class of 1912, when those elders were back on campus for their Golden anniversary.

Stretching back across a hundred years, I’m sure none of them remembered who spoke at commencement exercises, much less anything what was said.  If you have any reminiscences to share, send them to: jlincecum@me.com

Jerry Lincecum is a retired English professor who now teaches classes for older adults who want to write their life stories.  He welcomes your reminiscences on any subject.