Graduation is now in the air for high schools and colleges. What fun! But, what’s next? I urge all of you, graduates, to “Keep on achieving.”
In fact, reading of these good times makes me reminisce about my own graduation festivities almost 60 years ago. Actually, my high school class had many achievers…a senator, wealthy oil men, an astronaut, and also, a member of our basketball team, Don Haskins, who is now on DVD, the coach in “Glory Road.”
We were expected to achieve. In fact, my aerospace career ended in negotiating contracts with the government. After retirement, I wrote a book as well as some 120 published articles in magazines and newspapers. I still must achieve.
Nevertheless, my graduating class had a prom, but we had a “Skip Day” rather than a “Grad Night.”
My Enid High School senior class, the Class of 1947, held its “Skip Day” at Hellums Lake on May 7. Hellums, located north of Enid, OK, off of Highway 81 on a dirt road, provided the park-like setting for our class’ all day picnic and fun time. Traditionally, we all skipped school that day and sped away in cars borrowed from our parents to form up in a long queue headed north up the highway to the Hellums’ intersection. Surprisingly, after traveling a short distance past the intersection, the dirt road widened and sported triangular road dividers as might befit some grand boulevard. The entrance gate to the lake terminated the short dusty ride… a ride which belied the cool tree-shaded grounds and inviting reservoir.
Not only “Skip Day,” but also many a summer day and evening did we, high school classmates, spend there enjoying this cool oasis secluded on the hot northern Oklahoma plains. In fact, our families had brought us here since we were children. Hellums with its many attractions was the place to go in the summer… it was not just a lake.
Hellums featured not only a cordoned off swimming area but also an additional large expanse of water for boating. On a steep bluff overlooking this aquatic playland, an immense pool house accommodated bathers. You just went through the turnstile into the changing room, jumped into your swim suit, left your clothes in your locker and headed out the exit to the stairs leading down to the lake. (Theft was virtually unheard of.)
Across the water from the dressing rooms sprawled a beach for sunning. In the water, large diving platforms as well as a gigantic slide provided more sunning and fun. This grand pond promised even more than swimming and boating. Adjacent to the boat docks and built over the water was a skating rink. On summer evenings, the wooden sidings were lowered and the lights on the water became a many splendored thing.
Another attraction, however, had nothing to do with the splendor of the lake. An organ beckoned us to a merry-go-round. Not by any means unique or special, the Hellums merry-go-round was quite mediocre by any assessment. Of course, this attraction had a more fetching draw than its questionable beauty… it challenged each rider with a conveyer offering a brass ring. All who rode its magic horses grabbed for the brass ring. True on our senior “Skip Day” as well as on other previously enchanted summer evenings, some of our classmates were lucky and succeeded in snagging the brass ring. Others weren’t. History seems to follow that dictum.
Since the lives of our classmates began in the Great Depression, we were security oriented and devoted to family. When World War II began we as a nation were outraged. For us, this time period generated extreme patriotism, which became one of the tenants in our generation’s value system. We were and are devoutly patriotic.
Nevertheless, shortly after World War II ended so did our closely familiar high school days. College and adulthood loomed frighteningly ahead. And, of course, no one knew his future. Or, if he might grab the brass ring.
Some of our class grabbed the brass ring; some were not able. Some were lost by the wayside, early. Some were lost during our class’ journey over the last 59 years. However, many of us did grab that brass ring of life.
No matter, to the current graduates, I say, “Always try to grab that brass ring. Always achieve.”
Burton Anderson, a U.S. Marine veteran of the Korean War, has lived in California for about 50 years. He has a background in aerospace industry. He can be reached at
ba****@ao*.com
.
