My high school Graduation

In the middle of the ceremony one of our class members arrived late and staggered up onto the stage drunk, to take his seat. His poor parents must have been dying from embarrassement.

When it was my turn to get my diploma, I took my place at the appointed place and waited for my name to be called so I could walk across the stage to receive it from the superintendent.

Without most of us knowing about it, some of the boys from our class had rigged m-80's, firecrackers and bottle-rockets behind the stage.

Just as my name was called and I began to make my way across the stage, they somehow set the fireworks off. It had nothing to do with me, it was just unfortunate timing.

I stood in a daze half-way to the podium as the superintendent began ranting over the tremendous noise that was echoing across the gymnasium. It seemed to go on and on, but couldn't have been longer than 2 minutes. As the noise subsided and heavy smoke drifted across the gym I continued on to the podium where the superintendant was red-faced and steaming mad, he all but threw the diploma at me. Our picture was snapped, which shows me in a daze, the irate superintendent and a fog of thick, white smoke surrounding us.

With as much dignity as possible, I made my way back to my seat.

Luckily I was a very quiet kid who was never in trouble, so I was not under suspicion. Although at the time I bet the superintendent probably suspected me, considering the timing.

Girls were crying, drunken members of our class were standing up yelling "rock-n-roll 82" and some other silly stuff.

The boys were denied their diplomas, put on probation and had to pay for the entire gym floor that was ruined.

When they ran the graduation ceremony on the local cable station, they blacked out that entire part...including me receiving my diploma.

The graduation of the class of 82 has gone down in the history of our small town as one big joke. I'm sure they check behind the stage before every ceremony to make sure there aren't any fireworks.

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