Passing The Torch
Chris' Journal, September 16, 1998
When did it happen? How did I miss the big event? Was I asleep or out somewhere when the CBS special was on? Did my invitation to the ceremony get lost in the mail? I'm a bit confused here....
While visiting Huntington, WV I stopped in for my annual dental check up (okay, maybe not so annual but who's counting), and after my cleaning I waited for my dentist to come in for his cursory visit. But instead of my usual dentist of some years his new partner entered the room, reaching out a hand of introduction. I shook his hand and stared up from the dental recliner at him in awe. He couldn't have been any older than I am. There was this guy, someone my age, looking at my teeth and taking responsibility for my dental well-being. How did he get there? What happened to my good old dentist?
And then there was an earlier stop where I was visiting with an old friend. We went for drinks and were hanging out just like old times when he got a call on his cell phone. A client wanting some legal advice. Legal advice from my friend? This guy I've known since the time of pool parties and roller-rinks was a respected lawyer about town? Dishing out advice, legalizing and the things attorneys do?
Somehow over night it happened. My friends and peers became respectable members of their communities. They became leaders and pillars. The torch of authority was handed to us, the world passed down from the previous generation and left to our care. Well, at least we are expected to do our part.
And yet I don't remember any ceremony. There were no trumpets or parades or ribbons or decrees. Just the quite passing into adulthood. No fanfare. No prior alert or notice. Here we are, out in the world and told to make the most of it.
When will I look at them and see not school chums, or braces, or ackward adolescents but see the lawyers, doctors, teachers, businessmen, that they have become? When does the picture in the mind's eye catch up with them and change to reflect their new found position and stature?
The torch may have been passed. We're on the clock.
© Chris Moeller, 1998
Read Chris' related journal entry on the question of maturity: Relics
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