Killers - Class of 84

I attend a pre-planning
meeting in Allentown at
an alumni's restaurant and meet
three fellow students.

Wow - thinking back to
the themes of the many speeches
of student, teacher and 
administrator messages back 
in the early summer heat of
the 1984 convocation -

-LIfe is a journey...

-Never give up.....

-Remember where you came from....

-Change the world.....

-Follow your dreams.....

I have not lived in the
Lehigh Valley for 25 years -
I am out of the gossip loop.

I bring my yearbook and 
my three friends begin paging
through the pictures of the 700
fellow Canaries I graduated with.

Lanie and Bill begin pointing 
at different pictures of seniors
with mullets, punk cuts,
big hair and perms they
begin reciting -

owns business xyz,
drunk,
famous clothing designer,
hooker,
actor,
jail,
writer,
suicide,
gay,
professinal football player,
dead,
killed his girlfriend,
rapist,
pedophile......

Imagine that, 
out of 700 grads, 
three males ended up
murdering their
girlfriends or wives -
one using an ax
in order to hide the 
body more easily.

In 1984,  these were
not the things I equated 
with school spirit or 
for setting life goals.

If I ever get invited to 
give a commencement speech,
it will be memorable,
truthful,
and probably the 
last invite to
ever give one again.

"Can you imagine what
you will be doing
ten, twenty or 
thirty years from now?

Here are some 
possibilities besides
just the 
'successful stories'."