Purple Haze
Walk tall
By Lauren Bagian

June 4, 2009

The end has come. No, this is not a preview for a new action movie, it’s what every senior at Northern High School has been thinking for the last week, and will be thinking until they switch their tassels to the other side at the commencement ceremony on Tuesday, June 9. It’s a silly thing though, for we all know that it’s not even close to being the end; it’s a beginning. Graduation marks the entrance into adult life, a more mature life, even though movies like Animal House suggest anything but maturity. College means more freedom, more responsibility and simply new experiences, new everything. High school is just a thing of the past.

In the last issue of Northern’s school newspaper, “The N,” graduating seniors could leave underclassmen things in their senior wills, such as lockers, parking spots, positions in student organizations and the like. These wills represent the emergence of a new senior class, taking on the student offices and filling in the vacant parking spaces. The whole business seems a bit morbid, as there will always be someone to replace the seniors who leave. However, those wills represent something else--the connections the seniors made to the underclassmen below them.

If you ask a high school freshman about certain seniors, could they name the members of the National Honor Society? Would they know who was president of the band? Did they know who valedictorian was, let alone fifth in the class? Absolutely not, but they do know who showed them how to get to Mr. Witt’s room on their first day, who warned them not to push against the flow through the Intersection of Death (the most used way to get to the cafeteria) before or after lunch periods and who congratulated them on their great catch at the football game. Those miniscule things only appear that way, for they are the things that people never forget. I still remember who handed me my marching baritone on the first day of practice, and the image of kindness reflects the person in my mind. It’s always the little things.

If you are a senior and you do not think that you left a mark on Northern High School, surprise, you have. And surprise again, you didn’t need to be in any position of leadership to have done so. Being a senior is on its own a huge position of leadership. Even if some of the freshman are taller than you, (which they will be in my case), they still look up to you, even if it’s figuratively. Embrace that figurative height, you’re allowed to, you’re a senior.