Ashley Hall Ludlow

Sanford High School graduates launch their futures

SANFORD — On a hot summer night many years ago, Katherine Daigle sat down with her friend Natalie Ledue and played a game of Chutes and Ladders.

This particular game lasted longer than usual — about two hours, as opposed to the expected 30 minutes or so — because whenever Daigle or her friend would get close to the finish, they would roll the dice, land on a chute and get sent tumbling down several levels to the bottom of the board.

Daigle could not have known it at the time, of course, but this childhood game of Chutes and Ladders years later would provide her with the metaphor she needed for her speech as valedictorian to Sanford High School's graduating Class of 2011.

"Sometimes high school seems this way. Throughout high school, there are so many ups and down," Daigle told her fellow classmates during Sanford High School's graduation ceremony at Cobb Stadium on Friday, June 3.

The "ups" include scoring well on tests, enjoying great nights with friends or winning an athletic or academic competition, Daigle said. The "downs" occur when you trip while climbing the stairs at school, drop your notebooks in the hall and scatter your papers everywhere, or fail to get that cheese pizza you're craving because the lunch room has run out of slices.

"Regardless of how amazing or terrible you feel, you get through it," Daigle said. "And look at us: tonight we've finally reached the end of the game. Here we sit, next to each other, having made it through all the ups, all of the downs, having climbed every ladder, and having fallen down many chutes."

But, Daigle warned, the game "doesn't stop here." She encouraged her fellow graduates to head into the future, with all of its opportunities, "rejoice in the ups" and "hold your head high in the downs" and "surround yourself with the best people you can find . . ."

"Once you've achieved that, you'll recognize that the game of Chutes and Ladders, such as the upcoming future that we face tonight, is tenfold more memorable when you're playing it with the people you love."

The young men and women of Sanford High School's Class of 2011 arrived at Cobb Stadium Friday night as seniors dressed in red and white and ready to graduate. A couple of hours later, they departed from the stadium with the future theirs for the taking. They had a wonderful evening — cool and sunny — with which to enjoy this milestone in their lives.

Unmitigated England: Where's That Then? No 26

After all the troubling pictures I've given you recently, or failing to put one up at all last week, I thought I'd make it a bit easier today. Certainly one of my favourite towns, it has a very fine and comprehensive viewpoint on the south side, for which I am very grateful. I first saw it on a December morning in 1978, with folks gathering to buy mistletoe in the market hall and round-ended boxes of 'Eat Me' dates on a fruiterer's window sill. Visiting again recently, I'm pleased to report that a stroll around the streets is as rewarding as anywhere, particularly on a sunny Sunday morning with the bells from that church tower ringing out over the rooftops, as indeed they were when this photograph was taken. Extra toast and black pudding for anyone who can remember the poetry which has this couplet about the town in it: Oh I have been to ------ fair / And left my necktie God knows where

I shall indeed pay close inspection to the aforementioned exhibits, after purchasing a bag of Unmitigated pork pies from Griffiths opposite The Feathers. I have been going to the area since the late 1950's, staying in Kingsland just over the border in Herefordshire. This area together with Radnorshire is one of the most magical places in Britain, there is something almost primeval about it! I have fond memories of the old Ludlow Museum up some stairs behind the market hall, also a '60s milk bar by the castle replete with brightly coloured melamine tableware and a seething geyser of a coffee machine, probably an early Gaggia 'though I don't remember espresso being available... just milky and frothy!