tributetoclassmates&teachers
[ Return to: HHS Class of 1959 Reunion Page]
Tribute to Classmates & Teachers
By David McConnell
Hello Classmates, Teachers, and Friends,
Most of you probably remember me from high school days as a very shy introvert of a kid. As I’ve grown older I’ve mostly remained the same—except for the kid part. However, my mild mannered Clark Kent demeanor has recently morphed into that of Webmaster Super Guy.
Perhaps you’ve browsed our web site enough that you’re now thinking, “How did this know-it-all web lackey get chosen to give this tribute?” Well, let me first explain the know-it-all part of your question. It’s sort of like how all of the people who know how to run our national government come to be driving taxi cabs in New York City or cutting people’s hair all over the country—it’s just a mystery. Now for the chosen part of your question: It may have to do with my self-styled super guy status as your webmaster—I just volunteered to do it.
You will no doubt see me as a member of the Reunion Planning Committee giving this tribute. However, I see myself as taking my arrogated place as valedictorian and giving the valedictory address that circumstances denied me many years ago. But let me stop here with this little bit of appetizer and save the rest of that story for your dining pleasure after I’ve discussed some other things.
In this very short amount of time, I’m really going to make just two main points, but you’ll have to be an active listener to really take them aboard. Otherwise, you’ll be driving home after this reunion, and your spouse will casually turn to you and ask, “What the heck was that guy talking about?” If you carefully listen you’ll be able to explain it. However, if neither of you understood what I’m talking about . . . well, I’ll have just squandered some of your valuable time for nothing. With that said, but hopefully not forgotten, let me now begin.
Sometimes we have trouble simply fitting in, trouble in adjusting to a new culture, and trouble in relating to others who come from a different culture or are otherwise different. But that’s not all. Contrary to how many of us thought, back in those days, we were quite unique as individuals, though most probably, we were not aware that such differences are a normal part of life and just how significant those differences can be.
We lived for many years in Virginia, and believe me, Virginia, you’re no Texas. We had to make a lot of adjustments. I had a friend there, a lady, whose husband had bought her a shiny new, bright red Volkswagen. One afternoon she decided to bundle all of her children into the little red Volkswagen and go up the interstate to an animal farm, a place where children can see and actually pet live animals staked out on the grass. They got there about an hour later and was it ever crowded! She decided to park along the side of the road. Then everyone was off for a good time. Soon she noticed the time and remembered her husband, his supper, and the hour long drive back down the interstate. After quickly gathering together all the children, they started for the car.
Her heart just melted when she saw that the whole front end was just smashed on her brand new little, red Volkswagen. She headed straight for the caretaker’s office and, grabbing the first person she came to, began to give him what for. Just then the manager stepped from his office with a big grin and a chuckle and said, “Lady, you must be the one that owns that little red Volkswagen.” She said, “You bet your life I’m the one that owns that little red Volkswagen! Just look at it!” Then the manager, still laughing, said, “Well, don’t you worry. We have insurance and we’ll fix it, but here’s what happened. You see we have an elephant that was trained in the circus to sit on a little red tub.”
Well, he helped her to straighten the fenders enough to drive and in they scurried; then off down the interstate they went. They had gone only two or three miles when they came upon an accordion type wreck—seven cars all stuck together. Since it was an interstate highway, she carefully changed lanes and went around the multi-car wreck. No sooner than she got around the congestion, she noticed the red, flashing light of a Virginia highway patrolman directing her to stop.
After stopping and approaching her car he said, “Lady, don’t you know it’s against the Virginia state law to leave the scene of an accident in which you’ve been involved.”
She said, “I haven’t been in any accident.”
He said, “What happened to your car?”
She said, “An elephant sat on it.”
Then he said, “Here, lady, I want you to breathe into this little balloon.”
They had differences: cultural, temperament, experiences, and conditioning, that caused each of them to see the world much differently. The highway patrolman’s problems came in cars, not elephants. He just assumed that everyone else’s did too.
Think back with me to your time at old Handley High. My interaction with a number of my classmates suggests that we all had struggles in discovering our respective identities, in discovering our strengths, and in discovering what we were capable of achieving. Too often we seemed not able even to identify our weaknesses properly. Often we seemed to have trouble fitting in and in making sense out of our new culture and how to relate to our classmates.
POINT NUMBER 1—On the surface we each seemed to have different struggles, but taking it below the surface, we all were in a similar struggle to discover our true identities and to discover our true capabilities.
Some of us came from different cultures as we came together at Handley High School. Some of us came from a big city school and some of us came from a small country school. All of us came from different family cultures. Generally we each brought to our new school our individual differences that we likely supposed to have been common to others. So we were brought together with others we supposed to be much like ourselves, but really weren’t. We were all engaged in a struggle to fit in, to learn who we were, and, for the most part, to find the same kind of acceptance we had at home.
Some of us came from Handley Elementary in metropolitan Handley, Texas, and others of us came from Tater Hill way out there in the sticks. That’s Little’s Elementary to you city slickers from metropolitan Handley. There were probably things about you that took a little getting used to and things about us from the sticks that took a little of the same. Sometimes our thinking just gets all mixed up for many of the reasons already mentioned about those differences.
For example, I never ever thought about going out for band. I didn’t know how to play a single instrument. “What kind of sense does it make to apply to be in a band if you can’t plan one single solitary instrument, I ask you? No sense at all,” I thought. Then there’s football. At Tater Hill we mostly played sand-lot baseball. I had no knowledge of how you play football. “What kind of sense does it make to apply to a football team by a person who has absolutely no knowledge of how to play the game?” I thought.
Well, now I know that you don’t have to know how to play an instrument to apply to be a member of a band. Now I know that you don’t have to know how to play football to apply to be a member of a football team. Amazing, simply amazing.
Recently one of my classmates asked me why had I not been our class valedictorian. Without thinking I told her, “I consistently made marginal grades all through high school. What kind of sense does it make to think of being valedictorian for a person who consistently made marginal grades?” Then I recovered my senses. Of course, how stupid of me! It’s just like band and football.
I could have been valedictorian if I had just simply applied for the position. Having bad grades evidently didn’t really matter. This profound, new insight comes a little late for me to take advantage of it. However, I’ll certainly want to pass it on to my grandchildren who may follow in my footsteps, scholastically speaking. Of course, you know I’m jesting, but below the jest is a profound truth. Too often we make bad assumptions, not only about others, but about ourselves as well, regarding what we can or cannot do. Next time I think I’ll be quarterback!
Mark Twain once had some kind of malady and was led to consult his physician. His doctor told him that he drank too much, he smoked too much, he cussed, he chased women—he must give up those things. Well, Twain committed to giving them up for a time, and sure enough he recovered. Sometime later he was talking with a lady friend who casually mentioned her ailment. Mark Twain immediately told her that he knew exactly what she must do. She must stop drinking, stop smoking, stop cussin’, and stop chasing men. But she protested that she didn’t do any of those things. “So there she was,” Twain said, “a sinking ship with no baggage to throw overboard. She had neglected her habits.”
Mark Twain’s amusing story has him wrongly assuming that we’re so much alike that his solution was her solution. But we are different in so many ways. As we tried to establish our respective identities many years ago, too often we made similar assumptions about each other—that we were so much alike that our respective searches for our identities must yield the same solutions.
Isn’t it something how too often the assumptions we make cause us to misjudge both ourselves and others. There is a classmate who recently told me that she really didn’t feel liked and accepted at old Handley High. Talk about a wrong-headed idea! She was one of the most popular, outgoing classmates I can think of. I’m tempted to stop right here and ask for a vote. “Everyone by a show of hands, just tell me how many of you liked . . . so-and-so.” I have absolutely no doubt concerning the outcome of the vote regarding little Miss Popular. Then there’s the classmate who thought that she wasn’t attractive. Same story: completely out of touch with reality and how her classmates thought about her.
So we struggled, and we struggled, and we struggled to find our identities. Most of us eventually did find our niches. Actually those of us who have discovered our true selves have discovered our strengths, our differing gifts, and our amazing uniqueness.
POINT NUMBER 2—It seems that, looking back, our struggles were very similar, but our niches that we ultimately were able to find have been quite different; consequently, our respective resolutions to our struggles of long ago were quite different.
As we’ve moved on in life most of us have found our true identities, and they are uniquely ours. Our struggles have been quite similar if you look below the surface, but our responses to them have been vastly different simply because our uniqueness, that was there all the time, naturally took us each in different directions.
We’ve probably each discovered in our own way, that we’ve had abilities which, in our youth, we never anticipated. I think this is something that shouldn’t be all that surprising NOW. It is often through adversity and through the struggles of life that we come to know who we really are and what we are capable of doing—what we are capable of being. As Emerson said, “The years teach what the days never knew.” Wouldn’t it have been something to have known then what we each know now?
So my first point was that we were all were faced with a common struggle to find our true identities. My second point was that our uniqueness ultimately led us to our own unique identity that the struggles and conflicts of life help to reveal to us. I find that to be a very happy outcome because I believe that it is the diversity of life that enriches each one of us. Personally I wouldn’t even cross the street to be together if you were all like me, and I don’t think you would either if everyone was exactly like you. It is our amazing diversity that draws us together and is precisely why we need each other. I hope you think so, too.
Let me now conclude with my tribute to each one of you, my classmates and my teachers—even including our respective parents, though not present with us this evening; indeed, in many cases no longer even living.
THE TRIBUTE
Fifty years ago we went forth from the institution of education called Handley High School that was dedicated to preparing us for the future and for making our way in the world as productive members of society.
We now are the evidence of the success of the noble effort of our teachers who gave themselves on our behalf that we might reach our potential for which they labored so long and with so much energy.
We return to this place after having gone forth with determination seeking our respective destinies, those destinies that would ultimately test our readiness to achieve great things. We meet again to renew our connections with each other, connections that have too often been hindered by the separations of time and space.
But, in a larger sense, there is a reality that we truly can’t go back; we are now different people than we were 50 years ago. We can, however, join together in getting to know each other and in celebrating the growth and achievements of our classmates of long ago.
We have much to share with each other, sharing which will prove that friendships can endure over a lifetime—sharing our unique experiences, yet more generally experiences that are common to all. It’s not just the heights that we’ve reached, but the obstacles we’ve overcome that will prove to be the greatest inspiration to others.
The school building where we matriculated is no longer there. It passed away with little notice from most, but for many of us who spent time there as we passed through the teenage years, it is still there. We can still see it in pictures buried deep within our minds. We can still walk the halls, open our lockers, and see our friends. For us, it is still there because we remember.
Let us who have returned to this place, honor, together, the memory of our missing classmates and honor the labors of our teachers who extended themselves on our behalf many years ago. Let us even more truly honor them by continuing to build upon the foundation our parents and teachers erected so long ago through the qualities of character they instilled in us and worked so tirelessly to reinforce.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—living life to the fullest in the days remaining of our allotted time on this earth, and from these honored teachers we take increased devotion to living the fullness of life for which end they gave of themselves on our behalf. Therefore, we here highly resolve to share readily with them some substantial credit for our becoming who we are, some substantial part in the successes that we have achieved, and some substantial part in the victories we have won.
Thank you our honored parents and teachers. We owe you very much. Thank you. And I thank each of you for your patience in letting me say these things. Thank you.
~~~~~~~~ End: Tribute to Classmates & Teachers ~~~~~~~~