My high school experience rapidly drew to a close after that. I went on Senior Trip, which fit MagicMtn, Disneyland , the Beach, and Universal Studios into a 60hr non-stop adventure. Seven of us had to write speeches for the graduation, as top students and class leadership. Ironically I spent an evening at Steve's house with W and one other student composing what we wanted to say. It was a single unified presentation, with seven articulated parts, of which mine was "Dedication."
My mom had insisted that I apply for all sorts of scholarships and such, so I received quite the selection of honors at the Senior Awards ceremony, to point of it being a bit embarrassing how many times I was called forward. I sort of zoned out a bit when the military recruiters came up to present things to those who were planning to enlist upon graduation. They talked about the importance of service and leadership and such. I guess I wasn't paying attention at all, when suddenly everyone was looking at me...again. "Did he just call my name? For what? The Marines? What just happened?" So I go walking up on stage once again, totally confused about what is going on, and kind of panicking as they hand me a certificate. "Is accepting whatever this is an implicit acceptance on something I am not ready for?" and all sorts of other ridiculous thoughts were rocketing through my mind. It turns out the US Marines had decided to give me a certificate for Exemplary Leadership, but I have not the foggiest idea why. (Besides the obvious; not why me, but why from the Marines?) I guess that is usually a long-shot recruiting effort on their part, but I never heard from them about it again.
The Graduation Ceremony went well, and our speeches came out quite well. I had about ten family members come into town to see the ceremony, and had a party at the house afterwards. Grad-night was an interesting experience, where I won a few gift-cards, and saw everyone for the last time.
Steve and I, and a couple of our friends from Thunderpaw, were planning to work together on video projects for local companies, at least for that summer. Our first project was the graduation video, which we couldn't film, because we were in the ceremony. So we got a couple of juniors to do the camerawork, and spent the week after graduation editing it. I ended but being a disaster when Steve's hard drive failed right as we were finishing it, and we ended up redoing all of the work, but it never seems as good the second time you do something. Regardless of whether or not you can summon up the motivation to do a good job again after such a setback, it feels like the lost one was better. We eventually pushed out a stack of VHS tapes to those who had ordered them, and were very over the idea at that point. I ended up doing a variety of odd jobs over the summer, but didn't end up getting a "real job" regardless of numerous attempts, and strong pressure from my parents.
I also wrote a letter to W shortly afterwards. It is easier to do things like that when you have nothing to lose. She actually responded, but it is possible to reply to something without really saying anything, so it didn't really answer any of my questions. I would love to better understand her perspective on the whole situation, but the main question I have is: "was my lack of courage and initiative the only thing standing in my way, or was there no chance of success there?" There is a big difference between those two possible realities, and how they would affect my feeling on the whole situation. That question is still relevant today, but I will probably never have a sufficient answer.
The last significant thing that happened before I left for college was my Eagle Scout Court of Honor. It was at our house, with about 60 people attending on a Saturday morning. Four different people who had mentored and influenced me spoke, and it was a nice way to cap off that phase of my life before I moved down to Southern Califonia for the next ten years. But that part of the story will have to wait a while.
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