Also, the son wants a pricy class ring. And his letterman jacket, which cost $400 last year, will need to be updated at further expense.
I'm not even in my own high school yearbook. I didn't like the way I looked, and had no interest in preserving an image of a chrysalis self that I fully expected to shatter when I emerged as a butterfly in college. I must have bought a copy of my yearbook, though, because I remember jettisoning it some years ago. I didn't even know those people when I was rubbing shoulders with them in the halls of Shawnee Mission South!
I could hardly wait to put my miserable adolescence behind me and even today I have not an ounce of nostalgia for any aspect of my high school experience. I've always felt a mixture of contempt and pity for those who recall high school as "the best years" of their lives.
Now of course I have friends who do cherish fond memories of high school and some of whom even maintain ties with former friends and I don't think less of them for doing so.
And if I had wanted to preserve those memories in the form of a graduation picture, nothing could have been easier. As I recall, a photographer simply set up camp in the high school gym and students were marched in one by one to have their pictures taken. Most students made an effort to wear a clean shirt and appear reasonably groomed on that day, but it really wasn't a very big deal. I didn't know anyone who bothered to buy a class ring, much less a class pin.
What surprises me most about Chenille's son's high school graduation demands is how little things have changed in the past fifty years. The administration and family still encourage kids to view this period of their unformed lives as something of a pinnacle. It's pathetic to encourage kids to believe high school graduation is still a remarkable achievement that must be celebrated with expensive and archaic rituals and tokens. It seems to represent rather low expectations for the future.
Chenille defended the picture taking by pointing out that for many families, this will be the only formal portrait of their son and daughter, and the one that will be displayed on the mantel for the rest of their lives. She has a point, but it strikes me that nowadays people (especially young people) are awash with images of themselves and their friends. Often these pictures are digital and perhaps somewhat ephemeral, but most everyone can afford to document his or her lives in a way that would have been inconceivable in my grandparents' day. It makes me question the need for formal documentation.
Somewhere I have a picture of my paternal grandmother Esther Racus holding a diploma which may represent her high school graduation, but I haven't run across it yet. The photograph above does show her as a teenager. The Racus family wasn't wealthy, but they did manage to have several studio photographs taken of their children over the years, and I'm sure these were much treasured since they have been preserved and passed down to a third generation.
It made sense to spash out on these photographs then, because very few people had cameras in those days; there are no candid shots of my grandparents until they were middle aged.
I'm a bit judgmental about Chenille and Peggy spending thousands of dollars on their son's high school experience because they can't afford to send him to college and I think the money would be better spent on post-secondary education. But of course I am not the parent of a high school senior who is under the pressure of his peers and a high school graduation industrial complex. So it's easy for me to conclude the conversation by saying, "I really think you ought to talk him out of a ring."
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