With gradaution season here, I’d be remiss not to reminisce and offer my SENIOR YEAR OF ’72 GREATEST HITS.

The last week of my junior year wasn’t a good start, as my best friend Donnie Eash handed me a firecracker in the hall one morning. No words were necessary; he lit it, I tossed it, and we beat a hasty retreat. Squealers were rampant at Conemaugh Township High, and soon Eash and I were being grilled in the principal’s office.

In spite of eyewitness testimony, we denied any knowledge and when Mr. Balazo asked Eash his account, he whimpered, “I heard a loud bang. It scared me; I jumped.”

Breathless laughter is not a good interrogation strategy, but I found Eash’s pathetic fib absolutely hysterical. We were remanded to the principal’s office for three days, including the last day of school when everyone else went home at noon.

When our long day ended, “Crash” Eash squealed out of the parking lot in his Dad’s powerful Oldsmobile and drove those Pensylvannia backroads as he always drove: like a bat out of hell. After we picked up Hack Williams, Eash topped the blind, S-curve hill behind the school so fast we were sideways in the wrong lane.

Dave Watkins was topping the hill from the other side and the next thing I saw was Eash’s body flying through the dust-filled air and landing on a nearby bank. The car was demolished, (no longer “your father’s Oldsmobile”) and Eash spent most of that summer in the hospital with a broken back.

A cherished memory from our graduation ceremony was passing around my drafting class cardboard car for everyone to sign. It had earned dubious fame already since I only took mechanical drafting as an elective (time waster for credit) and I’d recruited an underclass, genius-nerd, Bobby Dunmeyer, to design my car for me behind the teacher’s back.

Also behind Mr. Kimmel’s back, my 280-pound friend, Tucker Dayoob constantly snuck up and crinkled my car or plunged his No. 2 pencil into it. Sure, it’s all fun and games until someone gets a headlight poked out!

Grading was approaching and I’d had enough, so I lay in wait one day, pretending to be distracted, when I saw that hairy arm reaching over my shoulder towards my cardboard sedan. Not yet … not yet … NOW! With a chilling martial arts shriek, I jumped up and karate chopped that arm with all my strength.

A hush filled the room as I looked around to see muscular Mr. Kimmel holding his forearm and staring at me with eyes ablaze. When he jerked me out into the hall, I gave my finest acting performance to date. “I’m sorry, sir, but I thought it was Tucker. I’ve tried so hard to do a good job on my car, but Tucker and them guys keep trying to ruin it.”

Rather than the expected pummeling, I received sympathy as he led me back inside and gave Tucker a tongue-lashing for sabotaging all my hard work. Now I was the snitch, but sometimes you gotta roll over on others to achieve your goals. Never forget that, graduating seniors.

Dunmeyer completed my car, and in spite of the pencil holes, spit stains and globs of glue Tucker put on each seat, I passed drafting without ever lifting a finger. Every graduate signed my savaged car during the boring commencement speech, but the precious keepsake lasted less than a year. My little sister’s stupid cat came into my room and used my cardboard, memory box for a litter box. Sports clippings, love letters, the car … all gone. A metaphor (petaphor) for the rest of my life, perhaps?

As a senior second baseman, my words were recorded for history one day when the newspaper editor approached baseball players in the hall one morning, seeking quotes on our team’s prospects. He was slow to get to me, so I forced a quote. In the next edition of the “Contownian,” analysis like, “Our pitching and defense is strong,” and “This is our best team in years,” preceded my: “It’s a jungle out there, fella! You gotta be an animal to survive.”

My friends loved it, but I soon tired of hearing animal noises from wannabe comedians each time I walked the halls. I also think the quote contributed to Coach Michaels benching me the next game.

In closing, I would say to you seniors: It really is a jungle out there, but you don’t have to be an animal to survive. Just find someone really smart like Bobby Dunmeyer to manipulate into doing all your hard work for you and you should be fine.