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Let’s Recognize All Graduates of Any Class of 2020.* And Please, Indulge These Two Proud Parents.
by Bob & Jean Blaisse, Proud Parents
Photos courtesy of Bob Blaisse
*The Class of 2020 may carry an asterisk after their year!
For months, we’ve been social distancing. We have sacrificed so much to save lives during a world pandemic. Locally, our stay-and-shelter mandates required us to sacrifice social contact and social activities. We now easily recognize and appreciate the contributions by those on the front lines of the Coronavirus, where essential workers treat the sick and also serve in our communities, to keep us safe and keep us fed. Our lives changed. We traded social contacts for online Facetime friendships and Zoom meetings, and waving to those we saw while walking in our neighborhoods.
We all see how social distancing has forced us to sacrifice so much for our own safety and the safety of others. We miss the seasonal events of Spring, and we know this summer will be different too. But most disappointing are the canceled life events, which may never be rescheduled.
Bob and Jean Blaisse, Proud Parents of a Class of 2020 Grad
On Sunday, June 21st, our sons — John, Joe, Jimmy and Jerry — will likely plan some special Father’s Day celebrations. I (Bob) am very honored to be a Dad. But I would trade Father’s Day honors for years if only the graduates of the Class of 2020 could be honored with the graduation ceremonies that may never happen, with the pomp and circumstance of ceremonial honors that graduates deserve, to be recognized among their classmates, with friends and family attending.
As we remember to thank active military and veterans and first responders for their service, and to honor essential workers on the front lines of service during the pandemic, let’s also reach out this month to graduates of any Class of 2020, to offer similar respectful praise and acknowledgement of their achievement. Sadly, there will likely be no formal or festive ceremonies for students graduating from elementary school, middle school, high school, trade school, or a college or university. That is sad for our youth.
Let’s honor fathers and grandfathers on Father’s Day. But all month, let’s also acknowledge Class of 2020 graduates whose long-anticipated graduation ceremony as a life event may be permanently sacrificed for safety. Let’s make that effort to lavishly extend our social praise for each graduate’s achievement, with our best wishes for continued success in their next life chapter.
Ceremonies are not needed to graduate. It is hard work needed to fulfill graduation requirements and earn a diploma. The Class of 2020 may carry an asterisk after their year, inviting recognition that more was required of those graduates due to the sudden transition to online learning and the required loss of social contact students would have had with their teachers and classmates for several months before graduation. The Class of 2020 was tested. Stay and Shelter was their internship. They all passed, and they all deserve our social recognition!
Jimmy Blaisse: We’re So Proud of You!
We had begun to see “signs” show up in our son Jimmy, a Class of 2020 graduate at Archbishop John Carroll High School in Radnor. Not signs of COVID-19 concern, but signs of “Senior-itis,” which we expected would appear in the second semester of his Senior year. It arrived for sure, triggered by warmer weather and planning for Senior Prom and the Senior Week celebration after June graduation. And then came the pandemic. Enjoying Senior year sports and school activities with friends would not happen. There would only be faces online while distance learning instead of in classrooms.
Jimmy Blaisse, Archbishop John Carroll High School Grad Class of 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic caused Jim to suddenly lose touch with school friends he may not see again. And he lost his weekend job as a Caddie at Rolling Green Golf Club, where he had planned to work mornings this summer before working as an EMT in the evenings. Jim was more than 200 hours into his EMT Certification course. But stay-and-shelter put that on hold, after he had given up winter weeknights and Saturdays to attend certification classes so he could pass the PA Certification exam. Jim may no longer be able to gain that on-the-job EMT experience before heading off to college, to begin his Medical Studies with plans to become a Physician Assistant.
Jimmy Blaisse, master fly fisherman
Like most students, Jim adapted to online learning, keeping his grades up while dreaming of Trout Season, until that too was canceled, but finally reopened with rules for social distancing on the stream.
Our Jim is a true outdoorsman, and mostly self-taught too, as a master fly fisherman, a hunter, and camper.
Eagle Scout Jimmy Blaisse
Jimmy's love of the outdoors is not unusual given he’s an Eagle Scout who was a youth leader of Boy Scout Troop 315 until he turned 18 last year.
Jimmy Blaisse with one of many wild turkeys he has bagged
We are very happy for Jim, and yet a bit sad too, as all parents are for their graduates who worked hard for years but who, in this, their Senior year, have been denied the traditional Senior activities.
Last fall, as a Scholar Athlete member of the Archbishop Carroll National Honor Society, Jim helped lead Carroll’s Varsity Golf Team.
In the winter, it was Varsity Ice Hockey.
Jimmy Blaisse (R) with Archbishop John Carroll High School's Varsity Ice Hockey Coach
But Jim’s hopes of playing three Varsity Team sports again this year at Archbishop Carroll were dashed when all sports were canceled and school was closed. There went Jim’s Senior year of playing centerfield again this year for Carroll’s Varsity Baseball Team.
Jimmy Blaisse, Archbishop John Carroll High School's Varsity Baseball Team Centerfielder
With all that has been lost for our family’s Class of 2020 graduate and all that still may not return to normal for a while longer, our several months of staying at home have given the Blaisse Family something we will now always remember from these times. In Spring 2020, our home was filled with non-stop conversation and activity. Our four sons were all home with us. A year from now, our oldest, John, will be getting married. And our youngest, Jerry, will be heading into his own Senior year of high school. And then what? We could be empty-nesting and our four sons could all be living away by that time. These past months of forced working from home and being all together more than ever will be remembered forever, perhaps with greater ease of fonder memories in years to come.
Major in Medical Studies/ Physician Assistant
Jim, we are proud of all your successes, which now include graduating from high school. We look forward to your furthering your education as a member of DeSales University’s Class of 2024. We encourage you, and every Class of 2020 graduate in this year of the 2020 world pandemic, to remember how well you adapted to requirements of sudden change necessary to achieve your purpose and goals. In time, you’ll look back and understand that is how you must always adapt to meet life’s many challenges.
