20 years

Today marks 20 years since I graduated high school. Wow. I keep joking that I'm getting old, but it's really true. I didn't bother to dig up an old photo, but I did find this gem from Sep. 1994, and I doubt I looked too much different the following May. I had the khaki pants I wore that May night up until a few years ago when Bobbins made me get rid of them. They still fit!

My strongest memories of that night are of Aunt Mel screaming at the top of her lungs when I walked out onto the field and she saw me; being overly nervous before delivering my salutatorian speech but then having an easy calm when it came time on stage, despite my cap nearly blowing off from the darn Bullhead wind; going to the post-graduation party at the Elks Lodge and winning a little cooler which I also still have; coming home to play ping pong with Atif and Shane at about 3am, then sleeping past noon the next day (no school or work!).

I think it was only a few days later that I packed up my stuff and moved to Phx to work at Walt's Ace Hardware before moving into Sonora Residence Hall and starting college in August. Those were the days. I was ready to leave high school and Bullhead. So that hot, windy night in May 20 years ago was a fitting cap to a stage in life I was glad to leave and the bridge to one of the best stages in my life to come.