I’ll Come Home in Time for Homecoming, my Dear, or The Spirit of School Passed

It came to pass, and my child went off to their very first “Homecoming Dance”, an ironic term, considering that they did not actually come home until far past midnight. Having grown up in a distant land, I was denied this tradition, and did not understand its cultural importance until I saw large crowds of young people dressed in attire of various levels of formality and age-appropriateness posing with their proud patents. I could practically hear the thoughts as I drove past: “it seem like just yesterday they were holding hands, doing ring-around-the-roses, and now they’ll be grinding crotches to blaring pop-music. I’m so proud”.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for my progeny, I lack the understanding of the importance of this coming-of-age ritual and I did not show off my appreciation of a good education by parading my wee child out in front of other parents in expensive designer clothing. I ended up having the only house on the block with a teen in residence, that did not have a public photo session for my child on our front yard. For this, my child was eternally grateful. So I guess that, while I may not be a Good American, I may be a Passable Parent.

According to reliable historical research (AKA Wikipedia), this event is called “Homecoming” because that is when alumni visit their old school. Just why people would want to visit their old high school during a typical teen-age party is beyond me, except to make comments on how bad and loud modern music is, and how modern dancing is scandalous. According to personal accounts of the dance, the old farts would be correct on both accounts. My correspondent, who was on the scene, reported that while the music was passable, it was being played at levels more appropriate for the engines of a Boeing 757, while the “dancing” consisted of jumping or grinding various nether regions. I am sure that the Gen-X’er and Millennial parents of these young persons would be scandalized that their kids are acting the same as they did when they were in high-school. My correspondent was unable to cover these antics for very long, mostly because they decided that their hearing was important, and because they feared for their health and sanity. They also were following other developments in teen-age drama occurring in areas where people could speak without yelling.

It all ended by midnight, with the teens slowly scattering to their various abodes, and responding to the queries of “so, how was it?” with the ever informative “OK, I guess” following by less articulate sounds, slowly fading away as the teens make their way to their rooms, where they exchanged only a few hundred texts before being claimed by exhaustion.

Evidently this is all good for School Spirit, another term for which I understand the individual meanings of each word, but which is unintelligible to me when assembled into a phrase. Does the school have a spirit? Actually, that would make sense, considering the amount of angst experienced in any high school. That sort of thing would slowly soak into the building until it took on a life of its own. But how does Homecoming help this spirit of teen angst and unrealistic expectations? Perhaps the spirit of the school is restless, and can only be appeased by ritualized fertility rites at the beginning of the school year? That would also explain the football game the evening before. Nothing like a simulated battle to put an unquiet spirit to rest.

Well, I hope that Homecoming was successful, and that the Spirit of the School will be peaceful and benevolent for another year. I will conclude with the spell chanted by the students to appease the Spirit, “Go Badgers!”

PS. I wrote this piece for my child’s very first Homecoming. This year, my child is going to their last Homecoming, so I am publishing this piece in honor of that momentous event.