Since the school is about a three minute walk from my house, this is the time of year I spend a larger amount of time thinking about the students of, and most especially the seniors graduating from, Norwich Free Academy.
The world we are entrusting to you has a more miles on it than the one we inherited and some of its dents and dings are older than either of us but are now about to become your challenge. I'd say 'good luck' but you'll need a damn sight more than that and I hope we have provided you with the tools to succeed because the alternative is unthinkable.
When we moved into our house on Lincoln Avenue in the fall of 1991, I already knew that the sprawling campus on the other side of Chelsea Parade was not a college, appearances to the contrary, as I had first assumed but rather a high school for those of age from Norwich (whose number at the time was about to be enhanced by the addition of our son, Patrick, and the following year by that of our daughter, Michelle) as well as a regional resource for neighboring communities.
This Friday is graduation day for the class of 2014 who probably cannot still believe it has finally arrived and in a matter of days will be perhaps unhappily surprised at how different life after high school can often be. As a parent of two NFA graduates, I'm well aware of all the hubbub and hullabaloo that preparing for the ceremonies entails and I hope you have the kind of weather we had Sunday for your special day.
We see a lot of NFA kids parked on my street, especially as the days grow longer during the spring semester. Perhaps it's because there are more birthdays that generate more driver's licenses, creating more cars (and pick-ups, lots of pick-up trucks) jockeying for too few spaces. For those students who have had late starts and find themselves parking closer to Oneco than to Washington and must rush to class, I suspect you came to think of that as a foreshadowing of the working world you'll eventually enter.
There are few places more hopeful than a high school graduation. Proud parents and other family members are equal parts bursting with pride and sighing with relief that a chapter is concluding, being very careful to not talk too much about what happens after graduation because tomorrow never knows and there's that old saying about the 'the best-laid plans of mice and men.'
I like the NFA motto as it appears on the homepage of their website, "Providing Opportunities and Preparing Lives." I think it's a terrific statement of purpose and intent and some great watchwords not just for those Wildcats setting forth on the journey of life but for all those in high schools around the region, across the state and throughout our nation.
To some extent they are getting a hand me down world, as we and those before us did, that they must and will adapt and adjust to suit themselves as they live their lives. Everything they have learned from every one they have ever known will help them become whomever they were intended to be.
As Dr. Seuss offered, "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
-bill kenny
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