Going Old School

Today I am doing one of my favorite things of the entire year - it's the day for Junior Class Interviews at my old school, Towson High School in Towson, Maryland.

The idea came to the faculty a few years ago that students will be leaving the school in a year, and will be going to college, entering the workforce, or possibly joining the military. Whatever is next, chances are, they will be interviewed, and that's the plan for this exercise: to give the juniors the experience of someone in authority sitting across a desk from them, asking questions and expecting to engage in a meaningful dialogue.

I was involved in this for the pre-pandemic years, and then it was not held in 2020 or 2021 for social distancing reasons, and last year, when it was restarted, I went and pulled my lumbar region all out of whack, so I had to bow out. Or stand aside, more clearly. Bowing was out of the question.

I look forward to it because it always always always restores my faith in young people. Frankly speaking, I think they are great, in their unjaded, hopeful, looking-to-the future way. I will meet with several dozen of the students, one on one, at a table in the same library where once I sat, unjaded and hopeful and looking ahead. 

To be honest, every year I will meet with one or two who have been sold a load of turnips, if you will. These few think they will ascend to the top of the computer graphics industry, or play in the NFL, or achieve fame and fortune without putting in much work. When they speak dismissively of the advice they receive from teachers and parents and other...older...people, I always give them the old Mark Twain quote about how, when he was 16, his father was the stupidest man alive, and when he turned 21, he was amazed to see how much the old man had learned in just five short years.

But those show-biz kids are few and far between. I love doing this, and I love telling them, "I was graduated from here in 1969," and then to save time and all that mental arithmetic, I tell them, that was 54 years ago. 

They look like they can't wait to go tell someone they met a Cro-Magnon Man!