Graduation: May 1987

I keep seeing "1987" on T-shirts and blazed across cool ads and stuff.  As if that was the best time! 
Don't you just know it!  1987 was cool!  Well, legwarmers were a little doofy, and the permed hair with the stick up bangs was kinda bad, and rat tails were horrible, and Members Only jackets????  Whatever.

Well, for me, 1987 was cool because I graduated from high school in 1987.  What a day.  What a night.  Probably very few people from my high school remember this part of graduation, but it is scarred into my brain.  It actually cost my about 4 1/2 years extra of upper level school. 

First, I was dating the school rebel, Tommy.  I happened to be the exact opposite (of sorts).  Tommy and I really didn't fit together, and as I found out much after the fact, I was actually a pawn he was getting out of the way so his cousin could date a friend of his that had been interested in me. (nice, huh?)  Oh, well, live and learn.  He was still fun.  He had a jeep.  He lived on a neat little farm out in the country and he had a sweet brother that showed horses.  I french-braided that horse's tail one night, and he (the horse) thanked me by relieving himself of some cooped up gas as I was about half-way through the braid and couldn't let go to find safe air. 

Dress was always a big deal at our school.  Guys wore a tie until 12:00 and then could wear polo shirts afterwards.  Girls wore skirts to their knee and hose all the time.  For graduation the girls wore white dresses and white graduation gowns over top.  The boys were to wear black or blue dress pants under their blue graduation gowns.  Tommy had brown pants - dark brown pants.  He had worked hard to pull up his grades at the very end so he could even graduate, and as we were getting ready all fussing over hair and hats, the teachers informed him that he wouldn't be able to walk across the stage because he had on dark brown pants.  WHO would notice?  WHO would care?  His mother sure would care that she had sacrificially paid for four years of school, and he didn't get to walk across the stage with his class because his pants were a shade off!  I was mad.  I was really mad.  I was at the other end of the spectrum when it came to grades.  Out of 100 graduates, I was 11th.  I know that because the top 10 percent got to wear a nice yellow rope saying they were in the top ten per cent.  I had goofed off in Home Ec and mad a C.  Unbelievable.

Well, I decided to use my clout to make sure Tommy walked across that stage.  I don't recall how many joined my cause, but I said I wasn't going to walk out on that stage if they didn't let Tommy walk.  Unfortunately, whoever was in charge was still being a stickler.  One of the guys ended up running to the gym to get his navy GYM pants for Tommy to wear.  Ridiculous.

Well, that was just the beginning of the night.  We had evening plans that started at the Skating Rink and then the plan was to all go over to my house to crowd into our basement and watch a slide show of pictures I had collected of our four years in high school.  (I missed that part, but I made my own memories.) We had other plans that went throughout the night and then a final hurrah for breakfast the next morning.

I must have ridden to the skating rink with Tommy because I know how it all went down.  Tommy had a pocket knife with him (no, he wasn't supposed to have it, but he was a country boy).  He had a hole in the pocket of his jeans and didn't want to lose it, so he asked Todd to hold on to it for him.  Todd slipped it into his pocket.  I went to find my friends and next thing I knew, Tommy and his rowdy friends were wrestling on the floor.  Boys.  What happened next they must have told me as we were headed to the ER.  Turns out they were all pouncing on Todd.  Todd kiddingly decided to "even things out," as he put it, and pulled out the knife and clicked it open.  Unbeknownst to him, Tommy was already in the air.  The knife went into the palm of his hand.  As fast as it happened, all those guys disappeared into the bathroom.  (Craziness on the night of graduation could cost you your diploma - or worse.)

They came back out and three of us were headed to the ER with Tommy - Todd, Tim and Me.  As they were taking him back to sew him up, Todd said, "Don't let Annette go, she'll pass out." 

"No, I won't."  I replied and headed on back.  The doctor sewing him up and I got into a conversation about where we were headed after school.  I mentioned Physical Therapy school which I was seriously considering.  The doctor mentioned having Anatomy and Physiology with PT's and doing work on cadavers with them.  Now, I hadn't quite come to terms with the cadaver thing.  And the sounds in the room got a little distant.  I watched as the doctor was nonchalantly whip-stitching together Tommy's hand and thought, "he is taking much less care with his hand than I do with my sewing!"

The next thing I knew, I was looking up into a bright light and lots of people in white were looking down at me.  I passed out again.  When I came to the second time, I was royally embarrassed.  Of course, Todd fussed and fumed saying he knew I was gonna pass out!  On the way home - or rather, back to my house, because, by now we had missed the whole skating party and the class was to be meeting at my house for the slide show - we were driving and to my great embarrassment, I had to beg them to stop the car so I could throw up!  (This was to be the first of several embarrassing events that went very similarly.)  Back at my house, I sipped sprite while the rest of my cohorts enjoyed the show and went somewhere else from there.  I stayed at home missing just about all of the partying.  I did feel better in time to meet them all for breakfast at Denny's.  As I left my house that morning, I found one of Tommy's wrestling buddies, Michael, asleep on the swing in my front yard.  Still don't know how that happened.  Anyone want to fill me in on how all the graduating partying went that night in 1987?  How many of you actually knew this part of what happened that night? 

Most of my class went on to the same college, but God had other plans for me.  I too was enrolled, but pulled out two weeks before school was to start.  I instead hopped on a plane for Los Angeles, and that is another story. . .