Text:

In high school there always seemed to be one student favored by teachers and trusted to run errands and help with projectors. I can still see the student in my mind. He was a heavyset boy with a fat belly hanging over his belt. His cherubic face, black rim glasses, sport coat and dress trousers gave him an air of adult responsibility. The only time I remember noticing him was when he was pushing a cart filled with audio visual equipment through the halls. It was not so much how he looked but the considerable number of keys he carried that pesters my memory. Attached to his leather belt was a silver ring half hidden by his shirt and waist. Caught in the ring were keys . . . lots of keys. They were to the rest of us a symbol of authority and responsibility. Obviously the school accorded him privileges others were denied and this seemed his saving grace. In later years, when the sight of keys jars my memory I wonder about associating keys with responsibility and states of fortune. After all, we learn from what we remember and what we've forgotten to learn memories remind us to take a second look; keys were not his only saving grace.