Senior Moments: Homecoming traditions unite seniors

For three other homecomings, I've watched from the back of the football field from behind my saxophone as members from the senior class get crowned homecoming king and queen. I've sat in the stands at the homecoming assembly witnessing the seniors win all the interschool competition games and, of course, the spirit stick. I've heard the seniors drive by school screaming at the top of their lungs on the traditional 4 a.m. hayride. I've watched the seniors light the bonfire to a drum roll and marching band music.

I always knew all of that would happen to me someday in the distant future.

But all of those seniors of the past were right: Senior year comes before you realize three other years have even gone by.

And this year, my senior year, I know what it feels like to be the one bundled up, freezing on a hayride when it's still dark outside. Wow, getting up at 2:30 a.m. is early! Now I know the self-assured feeling of domination at the assembly. Now I know that when they say to bring a load of wood for the bonfire, they mean a truckload, not, uh, 12 pieces of wood, like my friends and I contributed. Whoops.

Of the weeklong soiree of spirit days, the parade, the assembly, the football game and the dance, the lighting of the bonfire was the highlight of the week for me. Standing in a circle around the massive pile of wood our class had collected with my other classmates as we passed the fire around to light each of our torches, this overwhelming sense of unity washed over me. As cheesy and cliched as that sounds, it's true.

The fact that this was us, this was our senior bonfire that we'd been waiting the past three years for, hit me. As a snare drummer played a drum roll and the underclassmen band members played our fight song, we seniors shoved our contributions of wood, fire and gasoline into the bonfire.

As I watched the first flames spreading through the woodpile and looked around at the faces of my classmates and friends, moments from the past 12 years of hard work, stress, sad times and fun, joyful days played through my head.

It was one of those moments of realizing I'm alive when one just has to yell, letting appreciation of that fact escape. So in that moment of triumph, I didn't even try to suppress the joy-yell whoop-whooping from my mouth.

I am a senior.

Senior Mia Pohlman will write a monthly column chronicling her final year at Perryville High School.