Graduation 1963

It was June of 1963 and our small graduation class from the North Carolina State School for the Blind was sitting in the school store together for the last evening, reminiscing.

 

“Are we going to have a ten-year reunion?" Wayne asked.

"Ask Myra," Donald  said.  "She's secretary."

"Ten years is a long time," I said.  "Y'all just think, ten years ago we were in the second grade!"

Everyone was talking, but voices seemed to fade as my mind left the group and went on a journey all its own.  I traveled the miles from Lexington to Raleigh in 1950.  We stopped at the little store just outside of Cary.  The man had monkeys in cages.  Through the years lots of students who came down Highway 64 all learned about the "Monkey store," and the store keeper learned all our parents names.  Lots of Sundays parents would ask about other parents.  Had they been by yet?  Etc.  This is where, when I was little,  I would sneak away from the car, go away to the back of the store, and throw up the emotions I was unable to express. 

I remembered hitting the brick building of K. Cottage with my fists and screaming at it, throwing a real tantrum because Mama and Daddy were leaving me there, and I knew they would not be back for a very long time.  I could still smell the luggage and the pimento sandwiches.  I could hear Ms. Jordan cough and laugh and I could still feel her paddle on my bare bottom. 

I remembered singing along with the Country Jukebox on Saturday nights, Hank Williams, Ernest Tub, Kitty Wells, and Web Pierce.  Again in my heart I loved Anna and the doll with the pink dress and the Hershey's candy. 

My mind then roamed around Cook Cottage, touching the clotheslines, the bushes, the swings, and the campus posts.  I remembered the woodpecker who announced spring had come every year on top of the vent upstairs.  I touched the radiators with my mind’s hands, feeling the paint peeled off some of them and sometimes water dripping from the control so it burned a hand when it was being turned off.  I threw open the windows of spring and the jukebox at Pullen Park played into our Sunday afternoons.  Pullen Park was never as much fun as it was when Ms. Jordan took us as little girls, but it was our place to play and my heart played there for a few minutes before wandering on across the campus.

I thought about all the boys in my class and how little I had really known them.  I realized all the students, older and younger, had thoughts of their own and I suddenly wanted to run down to K. Cottage and start hugging them all, but I knew that could not happen tonight any more than it could throughout the years.

   

Tomorrow my classmates and I would put our luggage into the car for the last time.  How I wanted this day to come when I was little; now tears burned the backs of my eyes just thinking of it.  I wanted to run to Fisher Cottage and hop between the cold white sheets and stay there. 

Suddenly someone turned out the lights and Donald’s arms went around me.  We shared one sweet kiss as I realized tomorrow was almost here.  Donald, Billy, June, Jackie, all my friends and everyone I loved here would be gone from my life.  Tears crept silently into the kiss. Donald thought they were for him; I let him keep his thoughts. 

…

Lexington


Mama, Daddy and my two grandmothers got into the car.
“Wana see how fast she’ll go?”   Daddy asked.
“Lord no”, Mama said, “You’ll scare our mothers to death.”
“I’ll bet Susie will want to go fast,” Daddy said.
“Don’t be too sure,” Mama said.