Member-only story
To the Graduates: Speak your Truth
I remember Dr. Troy Southerland, my first school principal.
Dr. Southerland had a way of looking at you while rubbing his chin. When I think about it now, it is like he was rubbing modeling clay, trying to get the shape just right. I guess he was trying to shape us too.
As a young child in school, I felt nothing short of intimidated when I was near him, worried that I would say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. Admittedly, I did do the wrong thing a few times, with one of the most memorable ending with me and my friend mopping the floor of the boys bathroom. Dr. Southerland had walked in when my friend and I had been trying to see who could piss the furthest, stepping gradually back from the urinals, trying to aim just right so that we still hit the urinal we were backing away from.
This was not my proudest moment in my school career. This was not exactly an experiment in physics for science fair.
Dr. Southerland did not yell and do anything particularly intimidating that I remember. What I do remember was being immediately afraid and ashamed as he walked into the bathroom. We were led to the closet with the mops and water. We cleaned up the mess that we had made.
