GRADUATION chapter 48

Graduation. A time of excitement as we move on to achieve our goals. I had already been accepted at the University of Omaha (now Nebraska U. at Omaha), I was about to embark on my great dream of becoming an architect. I had not given up on the dream that began at age 12. All these years I continued to buy house plan books and doodle on the side. I was looking forward to the day my visions would go from paper to construction.

It is also a time of great fear. What will happen? What does my future hold? Will I finish college? Will I be drafted? Should I join the army? Will I find the right girl to marry? Will I still have many of these friends? Several of my buddies were also going to the U of O so I was sure I would see them around campus. I had several friends from different high schools and some of them would also be at the U of O. Would it be some extension of high school? Can I get a deferment?

I’ve recently spent some time reading through the notes scribbled in my yearbook by friends. Looking these some 50 years later makes you wonder what we were thinking. Some wrote the same thing in every yearbook: “It’s been great knowing you,” clearly a goodbye. Our ways would be parting. Lots of variations on “We had fun together,” another form of goodbye.” Then there are the relationship comments about personality: nice, great fun, swell guy, good guy, flattop, (I had one), cute (ah shucks). We are given advice and encouragement for the future: stay true, good luck, stay the same as you are (impossible – no one does that).

We hope some will remain friends for life, but we were to be flung around the world in just a few years. We drifted apart. Some came back together in later years.

A few weeks before the school year ended my friend Gene announced that he and Carolyn had already got married. Their marriage seemed inevitable. They said they had run off to Missouri and done the deed. Because their parents didn’t know they had done this, they would live at home until graduation. Of course, none of this was true, but it took time to get it out of them.

I wondered about our spiritual lives. I knew I was slipping away from God and I could see it in some of the others. There was very little rebellion in us during our high school days, but a day of testing our faith was coming. It had already come for some. The Christian gang was slitting up and not all would stay faithful.

I worried if I would make it as an architect. Mr. Franklin had praised me often in all four years of mechanical drawing. I did the work well, but that was high school. If I graduated from college would I be hired?

Graduation day was coming. Yearbook picture had been taken in the fall. Class rings had been ordered and were on our fingers. We had been fitted for caps and gowns. The event was held at the Civic Center. We were permitted four tickets for friends and family. It would be a tight squeeze. Our class at Central High had 484 students.  The whole event seemed to drag at the time. Many people spoke from the podium. Then it takes a long time to hand out diploma's to all those people. I remember none of it. I just wanted it to be over.

We left the building, had some pictures taken in our cap and gowns, turned them in and a new adventure lay ahead. Lets get to it.

This is my yearbook photo with eyebrows straight across, that is if I didn't pluck them. No break from one to the other. I hated that so much I plucked them beginning in high school. I didn’t know you could get the roots out, but eventually they stopped growing together

We call the look “the walker scowl.” That came in handy later in life.

This is a snapshot that appeared in the yearbook. I was surprised. It looks like it was taken in front of Betty's house. Betty and I are in the gowns.