In my Senior Year, I had a number of life-changing things happen. I was the lead in the Senior play, All-State Chorus, I met and started to date the love of my life, I worked at Charlie’s Brother in the weekends, picked apples in the Fall and I wrote for the school newspaper. I told my parents I was going to Mercer County Community College and study communications media. As I walked the hallways and May turned to June, there was a certain feeling that came over me. This would be the last time I would be around most of my classmates. The last time I would eat in the cafeteria, take a school bus, go to a canteen. The last time I would use a hall locker, the last time I would dress for Phys Ed. It can be a little depressing, but it didn’t take long to change my way of thinking and think to the future. By the time graduation day came around I was ready to fly. I had done well grade-wise that year, and had really hit my stride with regard to completing my assignments and contributing to class discussions, excelling in Shakespeare and Film-making. I performed a song at class night, and my parents planned to attend the ceremony the next day. The weather the next afternoon was great. Because Robin’s sister Holly graduated too, she was going to meet me there. Before we left, my parents gave me a gift of a Super 8 mm movie camera.  I don’t remember anything about the graduation — who spoke or what was said to the graduating class that numbered 186. I do recall hearing my name, striding across the stage, shaking hands with Mr. Gary Estat, the principal and Dr. Nunan, the school superintendant. When I got back to my seat I opened my diploma cover to see if they spelled my name right. I was stunned! Instead of a diploma was a hand-written note that simply said “History Text.” I had attending school faithfully for 13 years. Never skipped school and  

 never got suspended like my brothers. And on this one day of celebration, they give me this, obviously in reference to a text book that I didn’t return in time. Only thing was, I had returned it several days earlier, and the new teacher Mrs. Biondi, forgot to check me off. So there’s my father filming me exiting the ceremony with my fellow graduates, and my father calls out to show him my diploma, and I flipped it up with a grin on my face. The next day, I angrily marched into the classroom and told her what had happened. She insisted I hadn’t and she went through the inventory only to find it after all. Embarassed, she said she would go to the office get me my diploma right then, which she did. Forty years later, I never did see most of my classmates after that day. I did return back to the school periodically to see Robin who attended the next two years. Little did I know but just five years later, I would end up being a teacher myself in a public high school, attending four graduations as a member of the faculty.