Have a neat summer!

Have a neat summer

Last week, Tallassee High School yearbook teacher Traci Evans distributed this year’s edition of TIGER TRACKS, the school annual.

Signing a yearbook, even in our digital age, still carries so much importance.

My daughter Lydia came home with her yearbook and was reviewing some of the autographs. One of her classmates wrote, “you are an angle.”

An angle?

Lydia said, “I wonder if she means an acute or an obtuse angle.”

The person had, of course, meant to say that Lydia was an “angel,” not an “angle.” But it got me thinking about some things people have written in yearbooks over time.

Looking back at my own, one year a classmate took up an entire page and wrote, “Bird, STOP EATING, OK?” A lot of folks wrote things like “Big Bird. Big, Big, Big, BIG Bird” or variations on a weighty theme. But since I wear the same size today that I wore in high school, I can quote Lynyrd Skynyrd: “this Bird you cannot change!”

In a memorable second-season episode of the television series THE WONDER YEARS, our main character Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) anxiously awaits his yearbook to cycle back around to him on the last day of school. As any viewer of the series will remember, Kevin has a huge crush on Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar).

In this episode, Kevin’s agony as he watches Winnie write in his yearbook turns to potential glory, as he thinks maybe she is finally revealing her true love for him.

Kevin gets the yearbook back at his desk, and is shocked to see that Winnie has written the very generic, “have a neat summer!”

Such is the life of a middle or high schooler.

When I think of all the incredibly stupid things I did as a teenager (not to mention … as a grown-up), I am ashamed and embarrassed by some of them. One of our former middle school teachers, Mrs. Mahua Ghosh, famously used to tell the students, “don’t be ignorant and proud of it!” In other words, never stop learning and never stop bettering yourself.

As we stand on the cusp of a brand-new summer break, we have around 90 days to make a difference and make good choices. So, as Winnie wrote to Kevin, “have a neat summer.”

Michael Bird is an assistant professor of music at Faulkner University.