The weird and sad thing is, I used to think this was normal and that many schools celebrated afterwards with a type of parade like this. In fact, I remember when I was younger watching the convertibles go by, and how I couldn’t wait for that to be me. What color car would I ride in? Who would I be assigned to sit with?
When your in 8th grade, the oldest in your school, you feel like your on top of the world, or at least at Sears. And this parade gives you an even better reason to believe so.
Anyway, this year was not my graduation (obviously), but my youngest brother, Cole’s. My family, relatives, and friends all got together to watch the parade and see Cole wave at us as the cars drove by. And behind my smile and wave back, I couldn’t help but to laugh to myself and think how not normal this was. But I’m not saying that it’s stupid. Of course, myself, and the rest of the town love this tradition. However, I can understand why other people may see it as strange, even “ridiculous” or “showy”.
This tradition, as fun as it is, is definitely weird to look at from the outside. If you tell people what your 8th grade graduation was like, and about the parade, they’ll most like laugh or roll their eyes. It just goes to show how different perspectives can be, and how some things we don’t even think twice about, just consider them typical or normal, can be seen so differently. I think sometimes, or maybe its just me, but sometimes people from here live in this “bubble” so to say, and that we sometimes forget to distinguish that some things we do are not like most of America at all.
Brooks, this brings up a really good point about class. It is pretty ridiculous. But what I think is important to look at is how this is a tradition of a community. All communities throughout America have quirky little traditions(this one just happens to be a bit lavish...). But that's what makes America America. I wonder if we just looked at traditions of different towns(ie fairs, contests, etc), if we could be able to tell the socioeconomic class of that town.
ReplyDeleteBrooks-
ReplyDeleteThis is a great example of what we learned this year in class. If nothing else was to be taken away from our course, it was the ability to observe and question the world around us. It is so impressive how easily you were able to question something that you previously viewed as normal, and realize the message that is being sent. I personally do not think that most of us would be able to question the things we do without taking this course.
Brooks, I love your meta post and your blogging throughout the year. This post nicely ties in class (and class!) issues with your personal life, and you're right: that really is the goal of blogging. It'd be nice to anchor this post to a text -- local newspaper article or a comment you overheard, something to help establish why you do not see this tradition as normal. Still, nice idea here overall.
ReplyDelete