I think I had a weirder high school graduation than you did.
I grew up in Reno,
and a lot of stuff there is left over from the 80s heyday,
including the world’s largest stage.
It’s in a casino that’s now called the Grand Sierra Resort.
And it was originally built in the late 70s
to house a massive show called Hello,
Hollywood Hello.
It was huge. It had over 100 dancers.
There was a riverboat and a fake airplane.
And they had the San Francisco earthquake live on stage.
They brought this huge influx of artists and performers into the city.
And so even after the show closed,
a lot of them stayed and became kind of normal people.
sometimes your band teacher used to play in the orchestra of Hello,
Hollywood hello.
And sometimes your drama teacher used to be a topless dancer
who rode in on the wing of the plane.
And by the time I graduated,
the show was long gone. But the stage was still there,
and so were some of the sets.
And somebody at my high school knew somebody at that casino,
and so they let us use them for our graduation.
It started with no people on stage,
but then the floor opened up,
and all of the graduates on risers slowly came up out of the floor
to the tune of 2001 A Space Odyssey theme.
Then after we walk across the stage and our parents all scream,
they close. The curtains.
We go around the back. The announcer comes on and goes,
introducing the class of blah, blah, blah.
Coming in for a landing. The curtains open,
the plane slowly rolls out,
and all of the graduates are riding on the plane.
But unlike our drama teacher,
we were wearing clothes. That’s the gauntlet.
If you had a weirder high school graduation, I want to hear about it.