Thomas Ian Nicholas Eighth-Grade Graduation
by Geoff

Ah, summer. As my car screeched into the parking lot of the Los Angeles church where Thom's graduation was being held, birds were chirping. Flowers were blooming. O.J. Simpson was nearby, leading police on his now-infamous chase. Moments later, I was scrunched next to Thomas' mom, Marla, as we and hundreds of others waited for these 14 year olds to be granted high-school freshman status.
Thomas sat in the front of the church with 52 fellow students from his small, private, Christian middle school. (Trivia Note: The school had to "borrow" a church for the ceremony, since theirs had been damaged in the January 1994 earthquake.)
Though the actual calling of names only took about 10 minutes, the ceremony took an hour and a half, partly because the school principal and teachers had to dole out what seemed like thousands of awards for sports and music and good citizenship. Thomas didn't win any awards-not even for high grades. This surprised me, since I noticed that the graduation program listed him as having a B+ average. But when Thomas got his diploma, he seemed relieved and delighted anyway.
When everything was over, the students and guests ran amok in the tiny lobby. Marla and I found the rest of Thomas' relatives-his stepbros Robert and Tony and their families- who had found seats in the back of the church. Then we located Thomas in the chaos chatting with friends. I gave him a present from the BOP/BB staff- a gift certificate from a music store.
"At my graduation, I recieved socks," I sighed.
Thomas eyed the gift gratefully and joked, "I think I can find some CDs with this."
"So how do you feel leaving eight grade?" I asked.
"Great!" Thomas exclaimed, pretending he hadn't already been asked that question 42 times. Then the crowd carried us out the doors and into the twilight, signaling to Thom and his family that it was time to go grab dinner at Vitello's, a little Italian restaurant in Studio City, which is about five miles from BOP.
Not people to overstay our welcome, Bop's photog Joey and I bid adeiu and raced to our respective homes to watch O.J. be hauled off to jail. Ah, summer.

***Janet's Note*** The O.J thing gives you something to judge when this article was written. I told you it was old!!