Had to laugh at the end of the College Heights valedictory ceremony last weekend.
First, the school makes a big deal out of not calling it a graduation ceremony because the Grade 12s on the stage still have final exams to write and might not actually graduate this year. That's why they call it a valedictory ceremony and the certificate they receive is literally a participation badge (congratulations, you participated in the 2014 College Heights valedictory ceremony).
Back to the laugh. When it was time for the graduates - um, sorry, the Grade 12 students participating in the valedictory ceremony - to proceed out of the Civic Centre, the two songs they played were Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds and Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue.
Both of the those songs were more than a decade old before those Grade 12 students were even born. Their parents were in high school when those songs were popular.
Song selection is always a challenge for high school ceremonies. My class (1986, George Elliot, Winfield, B.C.) chose Imagine by John Lennon as our grad march, narrowly defeating The Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston. Several boys, including me, were threatening to boycott the ceremony if Whitney had carried the day in the song vote. As a class, our first choice had been Here's The World For Ya by The Payolas but we dropped it like a hot potato when we found out the despised KLO Secondary in Kelowna had chosen that song.
Anyhow, my daughter Claire marched to her own drummer last Friday. Among the 156 Grade 12 students on stage, 155 of them wore the cap to go with their formal gown. I have absolutely no idea where my child gets this contrarian streak.
With that in mind, here's a song just for Claire. Graduate by Third Eye Blind came out in 1998, at least in the lifetime of my graduate. It's a rocker with an attitude, with lyrics like "Can I graduate? Can I get my punk ass off the street?"
Have fun at prom tonight, my dear.
Check out Graduate by Third Eye Blind right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmrC_Pij5gc&feature=kp
