On May 12th, 1963 Thomas Hamlin graduated from Hominy Springs High School in Madison County, Georgia. He was a bright young man, in the upper third of his class of one-hundred and twenty students, and fairly popular too. He spent many lazy southern Saturdays swimming and fishing in any hidden pond, lake, or river in the upper coastal plain. Through his father’s tremendous work ethic he had been gifted a 1958 Ford truck on his seventeenth birthday, which he used five days a week for the tasks that Mr. Hamlin had envisioned, such as hauling peanut seeds and manure around the family’s farm. The other two days of the week Thomas would use the Ford for more innately teenaged purposes, in riding to ponds, lakes, and grass fields with plenty of alcohol, carelessness, and sundried Georgia girls to make love to. 

The remarkable thing about Thomas and the group of eighteen year olds that sat around him in the Hominy Springs Gymnasium that day was the pace in which they had lived their lives. There’s had been the first southern generation in the postbellum period to experience the expectations and motivation that had become American clique in the previous one-hundred years. During their formative years they had seen the introduction of the first traffic light in all of Madison County, and many had the luxury of owning a family Television set in their living room. Thomas was a part of this group, having an Admiral television box that coupled with his Father’s reclining chair as the centerpiece of life in the Hamlin household. Mr. Hamlin ensured that his children knew as they stayed up to watch the Ed Sullivan show and Bonanza that he had no such emminities during his childhood. 

“When I ‘as a boy we didn’t have a thing like this” he would tell Thomas and his siblings accusingly as they stared at the screen on any given night. 

“Well ya didn’t have light neither did ya?” Thomas would ask back jokingly, always the spokesperson for the children of the household. 

“No sa’ we did not. And it wa’ nice that way too!” The same interaction would repeat nightly, as sure as the plentiful peanut harvest any given Southern Georgia fall. 

Through the television set Thomas and the class of 1963 had been morphed into entirely different beings than their parents, with the values and stories of California and New York becoming more relevant to them than those of Confederate generals and Cherokee princesses. The replayed slaughter of John F Kennedy had a place in their adolescent mind that had been occupied by the slaughter of pigs in their parents. The graduates had witness an American South in uproar through cameras live in Montgomery and Albany, rather than in the streets of Hominy Springs. Most of them weren’t sure what to make of the change, but they did know that a ‘Freedom Ride’ had come through Georgia, and that most people in Hominy springs weren’t too happy about it. 

There was a small group of colored people in Madison County, and most of them worked on peanut farms or helping in the houses of wealthy residents. Thomas’ family wasn’t quite that well off, so he was never around any of them. He wasn’t bothered much by skin color. Afterall, he had much more important things to keep up with in drinking beer, fishing, and talking to Mary Sue and Darlene. 

Thomas sat in the fifth row back of twelve rows of chairs that were filled with graduates. He wore a light blue gown over his lone combination of a collared shirt, tie, and slacks. He wore a traditional cap of the matching color nestled gently over his curly brown hair. He listened to speeches about Hominy Springs always being home, and reflecting on the halcyon days of carelessness that he and his fellow graduates had been lucky enough to live through the first eighteen years of his life. He was told that his life would never be the same, but that this was  a good thing. The valedictorian of the class, Ronnie Hibbert (who Thomas never really cared for) described the future as being “an open canvas” for them all to paint on. Ronnie, of course, was mostly talking about his own ambitions. The canvas he imagined could be filled with beautiful fields of long grass, peanuts, and a home that he had built. Ronnie did not know that in five years he and many of his classmates would be drafted into the Vietnam War, and would be destroying fields of crops, grass, and homes. Thomas did not know this either, and he sat in the fifth row pondering the future that he could have with Darlene, with successful harvests, lots of money, and good family. He dreamed this not knowing that his parents would wake him up in two days and send him on a journey to Detroit, Michigan, where he would help make the 1964 model of his Ford truck. Thomas did know that all of the jobs were there. He knew, as he listened to Principal Lee describe the Hominy Valley legacy he would represent, that time was passing fast. He knew that his family would warn him of this. He knew that in a few minutes his family would gather around him like a rare painting in an art gallery, and celebrate him as the first Hamlin boy to graduate high school. Thomas did not know his grandmother would come up to him in tears, with a contented smile on her face, and warn him of the passage of time he would experience. 

“You have so much ahead a ya, just enjoy it all son” she would say in a warm southern draw, as she pulled down nervously on her favorite floral Sunday dress before embracing him. 

“I know, I know mawmaw” he would say gently, as he hugged her back in an attempt to comfort her. Thomas’ main concern was that his family did not know how much he had contemplated the passage of time. He had accepted this inevitability, looking forward to his aging and all of the unpredictable that would come with it. He enjoyed every moment of his life with the simplistic appreciation of the moment that leads to the contented joy of the elderly. His grandmother had taught him that, but she did not know. 

On May 12th, 1963 Thomas Hamlin was perfectly aware, and unaware. As the word “Congratulations” boomed through the Hominy Springs Gymnasium, he contemplated his future, and recognized this uncertainty. He did not know that in three weeks he would be an employee of General Motors, or that in three years he would be in Vietnam. He did not know he would marry a woman named Elizabeth from Fort Myers, and have two children. And he certainly did not know the accidental details that would form his life. He contemplated not knowing any of these things as the words “Class of 1963!” boomed at a further increasing tone throughout the gym. Thomas Hamlin knew nothing of his future, so he threw his cap.