On Friday evening, during Hopewell Valley Central High School’s commencement exercises, Michael Pugh, a member of the graduating Class of 2001, made the following remarks to classmates, friends, faculty, CHS Principal John Bach, Superintendent Robert Sopko and members of the Hopewell Valley Regional Board of Education
By:Michael Pugh
One Wednesday back in May, I was talking to Sarah Ahmed on-line about pre- and post-prom plans when she interrupted the conversation saying that that it was 8 p.m. and time for Dawson’s Creek. She immediately signed off, abruptly ending the conversation. Not only did Sarah sign off, but so did about a quarter of my buddy list. I sat there at my computer, mildly stunned at how fast it had all happened how quickly I ran out of people to talk to. I was ignoring my homework, as is the style of seniors at the beginning of May, and I had an hour to kill before the West Wing was on at 9 p.m., so I decided to indulge myself in the WB’s warped portrayal of teenage life.
Now, I by no means wish to cheapen this ceremony by sharing my views of the twisted relationships on Dawson’s Creek, nor do I wish to make a cliched attempt at likening our lives to those of Joey and Pacey. Incidentally, I have only seen the show three or four times. However, each time I have seen the show in the last year, the characters were relatively in the same place in their lives as I was, dealing with college or the idea of running away from friends and starting a new life, experiencing nearly the same frustrations and stresses I was experiencing. This show seems to be a time- marker for this class more than anything else, perhaps typifying it in a way that belies the show’s gross misconception of teenage life, giving us perspective on our own lives. For, as Dawson, Pacey, and Joey were discussing their graduation and moving on and remembering past and looking toward the future, I found myself becoming very nostalgic about my own life; no doubt just as every one of us has at certain points this year.
I am at an extraordinary time in my life, regularly seesawing between feeling very old and feeling still very young. No doubt many of you knew this feeling. The opposite end of the seesaw is getting heavier, though, as memories begin piling up, and I find myself being continually pushed upward until one day I am afraid I will no longer be able to push myself down and feel wholly young again. Growing up feels right, but I am faced with the reality that all that has come before is over and that I can’t get it back. This is difficult to accept. No doubt many of you know this feeling.
I was sitting with a friend in the field next to the Hopewell Elementary School late one night in May. We had taken a walk and ended up sitting in the grass there by the baseball field. We sat there and didn’t say anything for a while. I stared blankly at the world around me. After a few minutes, she said to me, "you feel sad, don’t you?"
"Yes," I said. Then for a while we said nothing, because we both understood what the other was feeling.
I was sad because at that moment, more than at any other moment all year, I felt very young. And at that moment, more than at any other moment in my life, I fully appreciated the feeling. With this new appreciation came an understanding that I would not be able to hold on to it forever. It was a new and different feeling. It was as if I were an adult looking at myself feeling young.
Time passed very slowly that night, and we let it pass over us, envelop us, and conjure all the memories we had of our childhoods, all the ones that had been forgotten, all the ones we were beginning to forget, and all the ones that would always be with us. And there, in the elementary school that nurtured our childhood, we shared our lives with each other.
I remember trading baseball cards with Dan DeStephano," I said to her. "Spreading them over his family room floor and admiring them for hours." I told her about the baseball card club we had with Dan, and me, Kevin Mills, and Chris Sellers. I told her about Chris’ sleep-over birthday parties, and playing poker for candy at swim meets with Hillary Miko and Tim Curlet and Cory Golis and Beth Tedesco, and I told her about playing hockey in the winter, and baseball in the springtime. She and I had not grown up together, so we both had separate memories, some of them of the same people, some of different people, but all different memories. We shared them all and we barely let the other finish before one of us started relating a new one that had just materialized after years of lying dormant. We talked for hours. I felt very young that night.
I was sitting in my hotel room one night a couple of months ago when I went with the music department to the music festival in Virginia. The rest of my roommates were down at the pool or on their way down to the pool and I had just made a couple of phone calls. I was sitting there in a chair eating gummy bears when a friend of mine from the sophomore class wandered into the room looking a little down. I offered him some gummy bears and the chair next to me and I asked him, what was up. He was having a rough time because of a misunderstanding, so we talked.
What I discovered was that I was only two or three years older than this person, yet I had so much to offer him from what I had learned in the last four years about life, relationships, friendships, high school politics. I didn’t pretend to know any more than what I knew. But, from what I had learned, I had so much to offer him; so much to share with him and maybe I made him feel better. My point is that I was able to take four years of my life, look at them in perspective, analyze who I was in the beginning, what I had learned, and who I am now, make some sense of it all, and offer my experience to a person with honesty and perspective that I could not have done before that night. Maybe that is growing up. I felt much older that night.
I think we all feel older right now, adorned in our caps and gowns, each one of us perched high on our respective seesaws. What an extraordinary time we are living, a time that one day will become a memory on the other side of our seesaw, pushing us higher and higher, giving us strength and perspective, one day bringing a tear to our cheeks as we reflect on those days, this night, this place. Our minds are young, but we have related a great deal about ourselves and about each other. We are bound together. And this place, now, is where we end and it is where we begin. We are bound together. We are bound.