It’s been a big graduation season in our family, with my son Jared receiving a college degree, my grandson Corwin graduating from high school and my grandson Isaac moving up from intermediate to high school.
Most heartening is the perseverance they’ve all shown in reaching their milestones; it’s a quality that will give them strength throughout their lives.
Jared simply couldn’t abide high school. I’d drop him off at the front entrance and he’d walk straight across the campus to the back gate and beat me home to hide in his bedroom.
He eventually dropped out and got a diploma from the adult school pretty much on schedule, but it always gnawed at him that he didn’t graduate with his own class.
A few years ago, he decided to give academics another try and enrolled in Windward Community College. Working classes around family and job responsibilities, he earned his associate degree with honors this semester and looked delighted at 34 to finally be walking across a stage in cap and gown.
He’s determined to continue on and get his bachelor’s degree as time allows.
Corwin is a bright kid who attended classes diligently at McKinley High School for four years, but the curriculum was often not to his interest and finding motivation to do the work was as challenging as finding the correct answers.
I give him credit for sticking it out and doing what was needed to get the cap and gown; his reward is that he’s now free to set his own curriculum for life and not hew to the plans of others.
Isaac had to change schools several times in recent years because of family moves, a difficult adjustment for any kid.
He survivedthe bumps and goes to the next levelwith all the tools he needs to beat the high school angst that seems to run in the male side of our family, starting with me.
I was expelled from Hilo High in my junior year for behaving like a jackass and barely made it through my senior year to graduation with straight D’s.
One of my teachers told me years later that I actually had straight F’s, but the teachers got together and voted to pass me so they wouldn’t have to deal with me another year.
I must have sensed that I’d gotten a break and it changed my course. I got my degree from the University of Hawaii in four years, then entered the workforce to do a jobI’veloved — covering the news in one way or another — for 46 years.
The world today isn’t nearly as easy to settle into as it was then, but I wish my boys a fulfilling journey and a happy ending.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.
