My busy week in review.

It has been a week packed full of activity in my neck of the woods this week. It started with Sunday, as most weeks generally start with Sunday, that part was routine. However, this particular Sunday was also Father’s day. My wife and children greeted me with warmth and announced that I was to enjoy this day. This was good.

I had to work in the afternoon and my coworkers also gave me warm Father’s day greetings. This, I thought, was good. But then I realized that people were probably not wishing me a happy father’s day because of my being an amazing father, but rather because they are all young and I am not and I probably reminded them of their father.  In light of the fact that I only admit to being twenty-five, this is not good.

I would have called my father to send him best wishes for being a father, but he is dead. This is bad.

I thought of less blunt ways to say that and none seemed appropriate. Especially inappropriate is the phrase, “I lost my father.” Car keys, phone numbers, and pens are lost, fathers--not so much. It may be socially acceptable to lose your mind, but not a beloved family member. Fathers do not fall in the cracks of the couch to reappear during spring cleaning. Nor do they dissappear under beds until the search for heavy winter blankets begins. I hope my daughters pay close attention to this admonition, losing your dad is bad.

Monday followed Sunday, which soon turned into Tuesday, which, of course led to Wednesday, also known as Graduation Day. This was due to the fact that Eldest graduated from High School Wednesday evening. I was excited that my daughter invited me, apparently the years of embarrassment that she had suffered from her father were forgiven and she allowed me to attend.

Not wanting to embarrass Eldest on such an auspicious occasion, I read the letter her principle sent home outlining appropriate behavior for family members during the graduation ceremony, which was being held at Rochester Institute of Technology’s (RIT) Gordon Field House. One thing that struck me was the ban on air horns. The letter specifically stated that air horns and other noisemakers would be confiscated by RIT security. The only air horn that I have access to is attached to a bus and I couldn’t figure out how to sneak a bus into the field house so I figured I was safe.

Imagine my horror when I saw an entire horde of young people brazenly carrying in air horns, big banging drum thingies, and all sorts of other noisemakers. I was sure that security was going to swoop down on these rule breakers like a horde of TSA agents on a 3.5-ounce bottle of shampoo.

They were left unmolested and soon the patriarchal figure of those young people stood up with a big stick, which he shook at them. As he shook the stick, they made loud noises with their noisemakers. This continued on for three or four minutes until he finally got tired of shaking his stick and they stopped until the end of the ceremony. At this point the man, having regained his strength, stood up and shook his stick again and his horde made noises.

The next day, Thursday, we had a graduation party for Eldest. I was opposed to this. As much as I love Eldest, I do not see why she deserved a party for sitting in a chair for an hour, standing up, walking across a stage, taking a folder, and shaking a couple of hands. This hardly constituted a reason for celebration and I told Beloved so. She gave me “The Look” and we had the party. 

Senior Pranks, the dull and unimaginative.

I wrote last week about the end drawing nigh. By which of course, I meant the end of the school year, not the end of the world. Apparently, however, some High School students interpret the end of the school year as a coming apocalypse and determine that their behavior should be adjusted accordingly. It is as if they are living out the answer to that age old rhetorical question, “What would you do if you knew you only had a few (minutes, hours, days...) left to live?”

The answer to that question for many young people across the country is random acts of vandalism. Spray painting buildings, breaking windows, randomly destroying bathrooms and plumbing fixtures. All of these actions are flippantly cloaked in the definition, “Senior Prank.”


I have read with great interest during the past week what some high school seniors consider a senior prank. I am delighted to inform you that our educational system is a success. For thirteen years youngsters across the nation are herded into classrooms, force-fed information, taught to take tests, and taught to think independently. But, mind you, just think independently; do not act independently. As Eldest recently observed, “You see, High School has tried to make me fit in this 8″ by 8″ box. After a while, my edges were sanded away, everything that people considered “different” was removed, it’s as if a big chunk of me is missing.” (http://alltherestisunwritten.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/faith/)

High schools reward conformity, compliance to norms, and blindly accepting the rules. This, with the exception of rule following, shows in the unimaginative senior pranks making the news. Three local teens were arrested for destroying property in one suburban high school and perhaps the most notable, was the defacing of the School of the Arts with graffiti. In this case almost thirty seniors were arrested for that prank. Even worse, one piece of graffiti was a stick figure. One Facebook friend observed that whoever drew that should not even graduate. This was after all The School for the ARTS.

Entering this horrible state of senior prank affairs are a fine group of seniors from Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk High School, located just south of Albany, NY. These imaginative seniors plastered the inside of their school with 5000 packs of Post-it-notes. (http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/RCS-seniors-suspended-over-Post-It-prank-3620154.php)They used different colors to write words such as “Seniors” and (forgive my french) “poop”! These 29 students, including the valedictorian and salutatorian, were let into the school by janitors, who even assisted the students in the prank.

When one of the janitors became nervous and called the students early the next morning, they returned to the school and cleaned it up.

I say KUDOS! to the RCSHS seniors for being both imaginative and responsible with their senior prank. The adults of the school were not happy that their students stepped out of the box, and they therefore suspended the 29 seniors.  Superintendent Elisabeth Smith is quoted as saying, “As adults in this learning community, we are not willing to sacrifice the health and safety of our students...” Yes folks, apparently all you have seen in horror movies is true. Schools are havens of evil beings after 7 p.m. Smith continued to say, “we will not tolerate the the loss of valuable planning or instructional time.” I, for one, am not fooled by that. We all know that the last week or two of school is completely bereft of an instruction or planning. Besides, these young citizens cleaned up the notes themselves, simply at the request of one nervous janitor. Congratulations adults of the learning community for once again crushing the imagination and precociousness of our young men and women.

Of course, the students are left with no recourse to pursue. It is, after all, their last few weeks of school. I wonder, however, what would happen if they boycotted some event the “Adults” in the learning community had planned. Perhaps some event where teachers, administrators, parents gather together to parade their handiwork before a large gathered assembly of other adults. Something so grand that tickets have to be rationed out to insure that the crowd is not too large.  An event where each student is dressed just like the one on either side of him or her. Where, when their name is called, they walk across a stage and receive an empty token of their years in the educational mill, while adults clap for the fine job they have done in chiseling these people to be so successful and being so alike and docile.

What if there were no valedictorian or salutatorian speech? What if 29 of their number were absent? What then?