Last night, my family and I went to the annual spaghetti dinner and auction for Lea's Christian School in Hayward, an intimate private school my sister and I attended between preschool and fourth grade. In other words, I went to a fundraiser for a school I matriculated through over 20 years ago with my mom and dad on a Saturday night. And I'm 30.
Anyway, this dinner has become an annual tradition for us. Though tickets to the dinner only cost $10, the auction typically proves itself to be one of the most profitable fundraisers for the school. All items auctioned were donated either by parents or local businesses, and the live auction of class-specific memorabilia (painted handprints on a bench, silkscreened photos sewn onto a quilt, etc.) appeals to every parent with a child in that class. These pieces can go for anywhere between $300 to over $1,000. Pretty significant change for a small private school of about 70 students.
Most of my teachers are still there, and they offer me and my family hugs when we arrive. I was, and usually am, one of the oldest alumni present. In a way, this makes me feel extremely old. I could very reasonably have a child there if my life had taken a few different turns. In fact, some of my old classmates, ones I still remember as 10-year-olds, now have 10-year-olds themselves and attend the spaghetti dinner as a parent.
As for the rest of the event, everything is the same; only the kids and their parents have changed. While parents mill about in the cavernous auditorium, bidding and socializing, their kids run outside, kick a soccer ball around, chase each other around the barren trees of the courtyard. I still remember what it felt like to be one of those kids, can still see myself in them, those sweet (yes, I was sweet once) but sheltered kids who are taught every day the importance of Christian values.
In this way, the spaghetti dinner makes me feel quite young still. Nothing has changed about the spaghetti dinner from how I remember it year after year, and seeing how the teachers handle the students and the respectful way the students react to the teachers, I suspect nothing has changed about the school itself either. The same aroma of spaghetti from years before greeted me last night as I walked into the auditorium. The same magician performed what is likely the same act (though I did not watch to confirm this) in the same hallway off of the main room for the kids, while the same auctioneer called out the live auction in the same way he always had in the other room. Same. It is rather comforting, actually, to step into a world, if only for a few hours a year, and know that everything will match up to the portrait in my memory.
My fourth grade teacher is still there teaching fourth grade, and she still enjoys it. If I ever needed to present an example of somebody who truly loves her job, she would be the one. Years ago, I remember her saying that she would like to retire after that school year. But then that year ended, and she didn't. And then a number of other school years came and went, and she is still there; I'd like to think that it's because she can't imagine how life would be if she did not have these students to teach and mentor. To love.
At the end of the night, all the students, from preschool to fourth grade, would get up in front of camera-ready parents and sing three songs, the same three songs I sang when I stood up there some 25 years ago. I've sung and heard these songs countless times, something about having love like the ocean in my soul and another about a meatball on the lam after a sneeze. Familiar, overdone perhaps, but when it feels like everything else in the world changes in the blink of an eye, how can I find fault with having something to count on, year after year?
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