Sunset Horizons

Relief teaching has come to an end. Had an option to continue for another week, but didn't take it up. Decided to go back to my old job, as there were a plethora of assignments lined up for me for that week, hence would pay better than relief.
That relief teaching stint sure taught me some stuff, like students really take their school for granted. Last tues' assembly was about a bunch of 60 year old old boys and their teachers coming to school to promote their book of stories about how life was like during their time. Sitting there in the new hall on the teachers' chairs, you can't help but wonder amidst the chuckling of the current students at the humorous anecdotes, did they really understand why these men of such advanced ages would decide to do something of this great scale, 4 decades after leaving school? What is special about the school that inspires this in them?
I used this example of these old boys in a civics and moral education lesson which I was reliefing to sec 2 boys. They claimed they liked my lessons as I would just ramble on and on with story after story, but that's another point. When I brought up the case of those old boys, one boy stood up said that, he feels that sometimes all the school is concerned with is their reputation and nothing else.
In the times I was in school, I may have agreed with him. But hindsight gave me rose tinted glasses. I told the class, that you as students are very very privileged to be studying in this school, where there are opportunities abound for you to excel in, where the teachers and admin staff are supportive and genuinely care for the students, where many before you have go through those hallowed gates and became men of great repute. To be part of this great institution, one has the responsibility to those before and after him to uphold its good name many hold in high regard. For it is only the things we feel the strongest for are the ones we will protect with vigour.
A bit melodramatic I know, hence my afterthought for that day is that I may like hearing my own voice too much, but those words just came. I think many an old boy would agree with him, for it was in white we became and still are good friends, it was there we went from boyhood shorts to adult long pants, and despite leaving, we irrevocably return.
I may been romanticising this, but I feel that way. It is very easy to just get into a daily grind of things, but once I took those necessary steps back and viewed my school, I did not see walls of soulless stone mortar and brick, I feel that unique sense of belonging, a feeling that I was always going to be a son of this place, a place of yes stone mortar and brick, at the mercy of rain wind and demolishers, but its unremovable mark it left on many cannot be erased.
To those who currently walk those hallowed halls, remember those who came before you, but more importantly, remember why they return.