MPT Part 12: Graduation and Onward

This is the twelfth  in a series of twelve blogs I'm writing for Mommy's Piggy Tales .  Janna has provided a fun forum for members to write and share stories from their youth.   This post focuses on the year 1961 and events for our family.   I have also written a short epilogue separately.

 Graduation and Moving Onward

As I reflect on my junior and senior years in high school, fifty years ago, I realize that what comes to my mind now is probably much different than what I would have written 10, 30, or 49 years ago.  Assuming that I recall those things that are truly most important, I'll continue.

My most useful HS classes were Algebra II, Chemistry, Senior English, and Typing.  Although I was most interested in math and science for my college preparation, my mom insisted that I take a real typing course.   So I learned on a manual machine that had no letters on the keys and I actually enjoyed the daily speed drills.  Thanks, Mom, the skill has been extremely useful to me all these years. 

Karen Senior Photo, 1961

On May 23, 1961,  when the high school band started playing "Pomp and Circumstance" (without me), fifty-eight of us were lined up and ready to march into the auditorium for the last time.  We had gathered there for concerts, plays, National Honor Society induction, and many basketball games because we didn't have a separate gym. The majority of us had attended the local schools for 12 years together and my cousin and I had always been in the same classes.    I was one of the speakers for the evening.  When the time came, I took a deep breath, just as I had practiced at home with my mom, and uttered major words of wisdom, all of which I have now forgotten.  Then the ceremony continued and I knew the best part was to come.  Dad had been serving on the school board for several years and had just been elected its president.  So my dad would be giving out the diplomas for the first time and  I was the first one in the line!   I walked proudly across the stage and saw his twinkling eyes and big smile.   I still remember shaking his hand and feeling his deep love and encouragement.  That's my most precious memory!

But my graduation was just one of the major family events in 1961.  My older sister, M, was graduating from college two days later in a city 12 hours away!  Somehow we all made it there by car in time for her ceremony.  And a few weeks later, she would marry a wonderful guy she met while in school.

From my perspective, M changed for the better while away in college those four years.  Well, maybe, just maybe,  I had changed a bit, too.  Certainly, I began to appreciate having an older sister.  I was truly happy for her to have met someone to join our family.  She had become a beautiful person and indeed my dearest friend.  We still enjoy talking, e-mailing, laughing, crying (mostly me), and sharing what's happening in our lives.

Here is a photo taken shortly before M's wedding, almost fifty years ago.  I had this on my desk throughout college.   It captures us at a time when M and I were moving onward to new places and Mom and Dad were ready to continue riding along in their parenthood roles with Joe and A.  

Karen (18), Joe (7), M (21), A (4) on June 24, 1961

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A, M, Karen and Joe on June 19, 2004

As a brief follow-up, here we are in 2004. We now live in New York, Ohio, Indiana, and California and keep in touch by all the electronic media.   Dad died at age 78 in 1993 and Mom at age 83 in 2001.  They are still very much a part of all of us. We are deeply thankful to have been so blessed by our Heavenly Father with such loving parents and each other.