P is for Potential

A friend from high school posted this video on FB...


It's a video of every one of the 600 kids in the Senior Class of 2011 going through pretty much the whole campus lip-syncing and working together to make this video in what looks like one take.

My high school, mimicking Fresno State, used to have a big lip-syncing competition every year. One year, I played Magenta in a rendition of the Time Warp. It was always great fun to see and/or be in! I wonder if they still do that?

Anyway, I love this video for several reasons...

I love seeing my high school (even though I mostly hated being there Way Back When).

I loved that ALL the kids participated and seemed to be enjoying it. My high school, with about 600 seniors then and now, always seemed small to me. Everybody was on at least a nodding acquaintance with everybody else and there were no real enmities. There were the usual petty high school dramas (I used to beat up cheerleaders who made fun of me or my friends) but nothing serious.

I love all that potential. All that confidence and perpetual motion and shining youth. For a long time, after I got out of the Army, I used to crash high school graduations. The first time happened purely on a whim. I was driving home from work and was rather intensely unhappy. I passed a high school that I always pass and the marquee told about the graduation. I could tell by the lights on the football field that it was actually in progress. I found myself turning the wheel of my old Mustang into the parking lot.

It was fantastic! Everyone was buzzing with excitement and everyone was SO happy! When I left that graduation I was happier then I had been in months. I found myself trolling other high schools in Tucson and I went to 3 other graduations that year. It was so much fun, I did it every year for three years. Then I told a friend about it and she told me it was creepy and I could get arrested so I stopped.

I see my boys running around like little crazy people and I love all that energy and joy they have. I can't wait to see where their potential takes them and I have at least two more high school graduations to look forward to!

It's NOT creepy, Ruth!