When I was 14, after we graduated from Markham Place School at a ceremony by the gazebo on the hill by the baseball fields, there was a party for my eighth grade class with pizza and a six-foot-long sub from Danny's and a DJ and stuff. We were euphoric, as kids are at the end of every school year—and even more so this year, it being the end of grade school in its entirety, and us having recently returned from an overnight class trip to Washington D.C. that had seemed to engender good feelings all around. I was a dork in 8th grade, not invited to many of the birthday parties you'd overhear about on Monday, at which more popular guys would get to kiss the girls who would end up signing your yearbook, "Dear David, I don't know you very well, but I know you're very nice! Have a great summer!" But so much of that bad stuff seemed to float away at the graduation party—everybody had fun. Kids talked to and laughed with kids they hadn't talked to or laughed with through eight years of going to school together. It was great. READ MORE