Rites of Passage

Throughout history rites of passage ceremonies have marked  a person's progress from one event to another.  They come in all manners of activities.  Obtaining a driver's license and making that first solo trip from home is experienced by most teenagers at some point.  Baptisms, confirmations and bar mitzvah are religious rites of passage.  Graduations,  recitals and Quinceanera are others.  Club and fraternal organizations initiations are rituals that fit the definition.  And, of course, the Wedding fits the description.

We have all experienced many life events that define our progress from one state to another.  It was the anticipation of such a change that gave me great anxiety in my preteen years.  Elementary school included Grades 1 thru 6.  After the sixth grade you went to junior high at  a new campus.   From the time you were in the fourth grade you knew about the Rites of Passage to Junior High. All males were subject to this initiation.  

Upper class men in junior high would catch the new sixth grade boys, take off their pants and run them up the flag pole.  A humiliation that I had grown to fear as time to make the move to the new campus got closer.  

The other concern that gave me grief was not a rite of passage as much as it was a different rule.  You had to wear shoes to school.  Most of us went barefooted most of the year.  Wearing shoes was uncomfortable. 

Although the "big guys" never did take my pants off or anyone else's for that matter, we did have to wear shoes.  We all moved to another life stage.