Fifty Years Ago: My 8th Grade Graduation

I wrote recently about my daughter’s 8th-grade graduation in 1999. After I wrote that post, I realized my own 8th-grade graduation was thirty years earlier—in late May or early June 1969. That’s fifty years ago—hard to believe it is half a century in the past.

No lightning struck our house on that occasion, but it was a major turning point in my life. I had been in the same Catholic grade school since second grade. Unlike my daughter, I didn’t have seniority over almost everyone else in the school, but the seven years I attended this school did have a formative impact on me. These were the only years of Catholic education I had. There was no Catholic high school in Richland, Washington, so I would transfer to a public junior high school for the ninth grade, and then to a public high school for my sophomore through senior years.

At the time of my 8th-grade graduation, I wasn’t worried about my formative years, nor about moving on to public schools. I was worried about the ceremony. And about the graduation party. And about our transportation to these events.

My parents did not attend my 8th-grade graduation. My father had a two-week business trip to Europe, and he invited my mother to accompany him. As I recall, this was her first trip to Europe, and she was excited. I didn’t expect her not to go, but I felt sorry for myself that neither of my parents would witness this first major educational milestone in my life.

Instead of my parents being there, my maternal grandmother, Nanny Winnie, came to stay with my siblings and me. Nanny Winnie was married to her second husband at the time and lived with him in Klamath Falls, Oregon, but she came by herself. I doubt my step-grandfather, nice as he was, had much interest in helping her care for her four grandchildren.

Nanny Winnie didn’t drive. Why she didn’t drive is a story I never fully understood. It had something to do with her wrecking her father’s car when she was seventeen, breaking her arm in the accident, and deciding she would never get behind the wheel of a car again. Which she didn’t.

One of my mother’s most time-consuming responsibilities was to transport us kids wherever we needed to go. Before Mother left town, she arranged for people to drive us to various events while she was away. To school for the last few days of classes. To Mass on Sundays. To the graduation ceremony. And to the graduation party.

I didn’t like being shepherded around by other people. Nanny Winnie didn’t mind at all. She was an extrovert and loved having other people nearby, even people she didn’t know well. In fact, she usually had their whole life-story out of them in the course of a single car trip across town. That week, Nanny Winnie chattered away with our chauffeurs while I sat mortified in the back seat. I don’t know how my three siblings reacted, nor do I even remember where they sat in the cars. But then, at thirteen, I was mostly focused on myself.

Nanny Winnie did all the right things on the day of my graduation. She got all four of us dressed in our fancy clothes and ready to leave on time. My parents had ordered me a corsage, and Nanny Winnie took my picture with the corsage after I was ready.

Me on the day of my 8th-grade graduation, with corsage

(As a side note, this corsage came from Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts, which was our family’s go-to florist in Richland, Washington. These days, Arlene’s is nationally known for being a defendant in multiple lawsuits after the owner declined to provide flowers for a gay couple’s wedding, though she had provided other floral arrangements to these customers for many years previously. This litigation is still pending.)

I can’t recall which of my parents’ friends were assigned to transport us to the graduation ceremony. It might have been multiple friends because there were five of us to chauffeur—me, Nanny Winnie, and my three siblings. After the graduation ceremony, which was in the school gymnasium, the rest of the family went home, and I went to the graduation party, which was at some hall (maybe the Knights of Columbus, or maybe a local hotel).

I do remember who drove me to the party. Unfortunately, the people that Mother lined up for this trip were the parents of a boy in my class. So I was driven to the party by this boy’s dad as I sat in the back seat with my classmate. Once I arrived, I was teased mercilessly by the other girls in the class for being this kid’s “date.”

He wasn’t a boy I would have chosen to date. He was nice enough, but he wasn’t my type. And at thirteen, I wasn’t ready to have a boyfriend foisted on me. Come to think of it, I never wanted one foisted on me.

I put up with the teasing and survived the party. I even summoned up the courage to ask a few boys to dance. The girls were far more willing and able to make such requests than the boys at that point in our maturation. If the girls hadn’t asked the boys, there would not have been any dancing. I even asked the boy whose parents had driven me to the party. I figured that was sufficient payment for the car ride.

When have you missed your parents at some turning point in your life?