Fair Dillard, 16 Years Later...

Ah, every year around this time I get a bit sentimental. Tomorrow (May 13) will be the 16th anniversary of me graduating from college (Dillard University of New Orleans to be exact. I'm on the far right with the shades & full beard). I wonder what these guys are doing since we all left the Avenue of the Oaks in our rear view mirrors? Just wondering. Had my mother been alive to see this, I'm sure she'd be very proud of me. Since her passing in 1979, it can be hard to think what she'd say watching me receive my Bachelor's degree in Communications/Humanities in person.  I still have the videotape to prove it, too! One of these days I will transfer this sucker onto a disc! VHS has gone the way of the 45 records and cassette singles. 

Despite that inevitable task, I have rarely watched it in recent years. The last time I saw it in its entirety was probably 2006. I nearly came to tears watching that event. Why? Well, like a lot of people, I wanted to have some fun at my commencement. Do some things that I never had the chance (or more importantly, money) to do them. Go out on a few more dates, drink some daiquris, eat at the more exquisite restaurants, the list goes on. I never did find out where the Audubon Zoo was when I was down there. Had my ass been smart enough to get a job while at college, some of these things would've been feasible. I got myself wasted on a fourth of a case of beer, canvassed through a bunch of neighborhoods, nearly got expelled twice over lost pieces of mail, lived on campus during a hurricane, seen a bunch of die-hard "WHO DAT" Saints fans, making the choice between a soda and a cold drink (local slang), and the most memorable, cashing in my virginity on a grassy field near an I-610 exit ramp. Just be glad I didn't get any bugs up the wazoo that Saturday night with that girl. (We're still friends today.)

Every time I watch myself on that commencement tape I study myself from that point to where I am now. I know it would've been right to at least have a shirt and tie on instead of that since-tossed hideous shirt. Those shoes....why did I wear those shoes? I might have a so-called frumpy style type of wardrobe, but I know I would pay $1 million to go back in time and fix what I wore that day. My beard would've been long gone, no question here. A quick trip to the barber shop nearby should've been necessary. A goatee would look nicer on me. Had I known now back then on what I'd do for a hobby just a few years later, the possibilities are endless!  One obvious thing I could change would be my weight. A life-long problem to this day.  What was i doing wearing that parachute? Oh wait, that's my graduation gown.  I'm not saying there aren't enough good clothes for plus-sized men, just why the hell are they more expensive? 

I told my folks well in advance of this occasion. Who wouldn't want to get their diploma in front of their family & friends? That's unreal! They couldn't make it, so I wound up as a party of one coming down from Milwaukee in the car my dad gave me that didn't have the spedometer working or had a recent tune-up. There was no way in hell was I going to miss my only chance at being at my own college graduation. Beats having my diploma sent to me. It wouldn't have the same merit of enjoyment. So I missed the Friday festivities but did get to Dillard at dusk. Oh yeah, that reminds me: I borrowed someone's tie for something and kept forgetting to return it. He said it was from his late grandfather. Looks better on me anyway! During that last weekend I attended my church home-away-from-home church for the last time (Full Gospel C.O.G.I.C.), drove around New Orleans, and basically chilled on campus. They knew I was coming back for this. 

Then the commencement service came. Monday, May 13, 1996. Warm sunny day in New Orleans. Only the picture above and another are still with me. At 6:18pm, my name was called. My family wasn't there, mainly because the graduation ceremonies at that time were held on a Monday! But I still got a nice round of applause from my peers. So my actual name was called instead of Klyde (the nickname I had used since high school), they all knew that jazz. The academic administrators dropped my diploma and MADE them pick it up.  I waited 6.5 years through academic probation and near expellation and financial woes NOT to have this moment delayed any further. They did pick it up and gave me my Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities/Communicatons. I was a happy camper, so much I threw my fist in the air and celebrated thrustly, "YES!!!!!" It knocked my cap off, but I didn't care. Shook hands with then-school President Dr. Samuel DuBois Cook and walked off the stage. I'm on the video twice afterwards, shaggy beard and all. Shades dangling on my parachute,er, gown. Soon after, I officially became a graduate of Dillard University. I do know I kissed a girl named Jennifer, who graduated with me, while passing her up at the conclusion. However, instead of being greeted by my family, there was no one physically there to congratulate me.

This is where it hurts the most. Sure, some of my family attended college MUCH close to home than the nearly 1,100-mile trip from Milwaukee-New Orleans.  I wanted to spread my own wings, so I guess I deserved what I had gotten.  I wound up taking a friend & her newborn son (we went to Full Gospel together) home, then celebrated alone with a bag of chips and a soda. Also a DILLARD ALUMNI t-shirt and sweatshirt, with the latter now up on my wall in this motel room. Until I finally lose enough weight, might as well hang it up for some kind of inspiration. Long after the commencement ended I showed off to some folks down there the t-shirt while singing the verse from Boyz II Men's "End of the Road". And personally for me, it was.  I had no serious plans on what the hell am I going to do now that my college days were over. 16 years later, i STILL don't think I made any plans! Before I made the long trip back home to Milwaukee the next morning, I was gassing up my car at a Texaco gas station near the school. I bought a copy of the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper to make sure my name was among the new Dillard graduates. Thank God it was. No one saw the videotape of my graduation until my cousin's post- graduation party from Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) in May 1997. I really can't be that upset with the family. I have one sister an two cousins that graduated from UWM and my other sister, who finished at Minnesota in 1992. Sometimes it's OK to party alone. 

So you may be asking me, "What have you been doing/ you learned since graduating from Dillard?"  Well, things don't always pan out the way it's planned to be, right? Welcome to my world. Maybe I'll play the lotto and hopefully win the jackpot and live the life I've always dreamed of. It's as if God purposely threw a monkey wrench into my future plans and cause/force me to go a different path. I'm still waiting to see what kind of adventure God may want me to have in the next stage of my life. C'mon, God. Show me a sign!