Dub Borders dubborders@sbcglobal. net So many things in our lives fall into the title above. These happenings are hard to understand.

When I was a senior in high school, we didn’t have a large number of classes that we could take. After football season was over, two of my teammates and I had no class that we could go into the last period of the day. To get us out of the way, we were put in Glee Club. Just imagine, James McDonald, Charles Brand and me, in a vocal music class. After the second day, the instructor told us just to stay out of class and out of sight.

That was good for about thirty minutes. Since there was no flag flying on the flagpole, we decided to climb the pole. The three of us were about half-way up, when out walks the principal. We get chewed out and then are told to go to the gym where basketball practice is taking place. Just sitting in a gym, wanting to go home, and not practicing is not good.

The next day, we start acting like monkeys and began climbing the I-beam braces in the Old Gym. The coach gets on to us really bad. Then he tells us, if we will be good and stay out of the way, he had one extra suit. On game days, we could shoot free throws, the person that makes the most could then suit up that night. We liked that suggestion. I got to suit up for two games, one was at Prague. I had never been on a school bus at night with girls. On the trip up to Prague, I’m now thinking, why haven’t I been playing basketball before?

To sum up, why didn’t school officials just let us go home the last period? My dad would have loved to have me home and working. School officials back in that day would let girls graduate early, I never heard of a male student ever getting that opportunity, and we couldn’t even go home the last hour. All of this never made sense, and it still doesn’t.

My first year of teaching at Duncan Junior High, the Principal came by my room one day and tells me of a School Masters evening meeting on a Friday night. I was expected to attend. The meal was fried chicken for five dollars. What he didn’t tell me was that it was an initiation for beginning teachers in Stephens County. I attended.

The first thing we beginning teachers had to do was take off our shoes and socks, roll our pants up to our calves. The shoes were all thrown in one mixed pile, shoes and socks not together. We had to do some crazy things because the Grand Ole Man required it. The last thing to do was walk across a stage, with all the other educators watching, through some ice cold water with a person spinning a hand electric generator and two bare wires connected to the water, like the old telephone generator, as we jumped out of the ice water there was a stand with a picture of the Grand Ole Man, it was a mirror. In my mind, we were the Grand Ole Fools. All the while, the rest of the group of teachers are eating fried chicken and having a fun time visiting and watching us go through this terrible ordeal. By the time I found my shoes and socks, I really didn’t care about eating. I should have known better when I was invited, because the Principal told me not to tell the other science teacher about this meal, he was a black man.

This entire evening never made any sense to me. My thinking was that initiations were gone after the FFA Green-Hand Initiation. I did not encounter this event at any other school for the next thirty years.

Another time in Duncan schools, the first home football game in 1967. I was told to watch this location at the end of the track around the football field. I saw a hole in the hog wire fence with hedges that had to be crawled through before a person could try to get in free. I did my duty that game, thinking this fence could be fixed easily and that a person like me could be put into a different location.

The next Monday, I made my suggestion to the administration. I was met with this dumb look, like, how naive can you be? We usually go to Duncan twice a year to visit my sister, Mary Pearl Hammonds and her two daughters. I have never gone by the football field to see if the fence hole has ever been repaired, my guess is that it hasn’t. Another of those, this just doesn’t make sense!

The last one is about a decision at my last school to hold Senior Commencement on Thursday night, then require the Seniors to be at school the next day until noon to get their diploma. After the Commencement some parents decided to have an all night Pasture Party for seniors wanting to attend. They could drive through the gate, no checking of alcoholic beverages, but were not allowed to leave after entering. Quite a contrast from the safe overnight groups events that took place after the Prom a few weeks earlier.

The next morning I had one first hour class of seven seniors in a Physics class. This was my last year of teaching. When they came in carrying their blankets, I just told them to go back and sleep on the floor if they wanted to. Two students did not attend the party, I put them to work helping check books in and averaging grades. I thought this idea of a graduation just did not make any sense.

Oops, another one. The only thing close to this was at Harrah, Oklahoma, graduation on Thursday night and we are to take the seniors on a day trip to Lake Tenkiller the next day. We had to load everyone up an hour before daylight, it’s hard to really check for any unusual behavior when sixty kids are loading on a bus in the dark of the night. Dues were paid when the bus started making all the curves and hills at the lake. Two or three guys didn’t get out of the bus until after lunch.

I’m not for sure when Allen schools started Saturday morning graduations, but that makes sense to me. Give families a chance to see the graduation and time with their families.

I have been able to attend two of these morning graduations when both Taryn and Tanner Wofford graduated in different years. I did get amused at thinking nothing much had changed at Allen High School since I graduated in 1962. That morning there was an Allred, Borders-Wofford, Huckeby, Peay, and a Rinehart person to graduate