Sunsets don’t always signal the end of the day.
Sometimes, their glow serves as the illumination for a new path.
The Class of 2021 at University High School can tell you all about it.
After the second half their junior year was kicked down the road courtesy of COVID, and after most of their senior year was pandemic-dicey, even with the vaccine, most of them assembled on the football field at their school on the warm Friday evening to go forth.
Not all 292 of them, though, Principal Kim Greene said.
“Not everyone is walking tonight,” she said, “but most of them are.”
And the ones who were, appeared amazed for the chance, given the epidemiology of the moment.
They were masked-up, and socially distanced.
They were wrung-down, and built-up, at the same time.
Charlotte Gribble displayed a full-on grin, as she milled about by the bleachers, waiting to take her place on the turf.
“It feels pretty good to be here,” she said, as that grin morphed into a Hollywood smile, accompanied a just-plain, happy-to-be-here laugh.
“I mean, after everything,” said the once-and-future veterinary sciences major, who is off to Fairmont State University in the fall to begin studies in that subject.
What did she miss? “People. Interacting with them, even though I love animals.”
What did discover she enjoyed about the whole mainly sequestered endeavor? “I actually didn’t mind doing work online.”
It was clear that her class, collectively, didn’t mind each other’s company, either.
As those rays glanced across the field, they laughed and jostled one another – as best they could, with a 6-foot mandate.
And their bursts of conversation came off like high school-haikus – in the moment, and happy to be there.
“Bobby pins! Anybody? Bobby pins!”
“Shoulda rethought the shoes. They’re killing my arches.”
“Is it hot? Man, it’s hot.”
“Yeah, but at least it’s not raining.”
Vinnie Pinn – or, Vincenzo Biselli Pinn, as he appeared in the program – peeled off his aviators and squinted in the direction of the football field, which was filling up with his classmates.
What he was really doing was keeping an eye out for fall and WVU, where he plans on embarking on the study of either engineering or medicine.
“You know what? I’m more relieved, than anything. Get this done tonight, and then move on.”
A sentiment which received an echoing endorsement from the podium by Olivia Kaddar, senior class president.
Sure, she allowed: It might be easy to lament what was missed altogether in junior year and what was compromised in this one.
But, she added, why waste the energy?
“If we keep re-reading the same chapter,” she told her classmates, “we’ll never finish the book.”
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