Another Homecoming week at my school has come and gone, and as always I'm amazed at the way this event exists in a kind of time warp. The homecoming queen was a cheerleader, and the king was captain of the football team. Kids got dressed up in school colors, and I actually overheard students humming the alma mater.

While feebly attempting to teach serious literature to students dressed as cats, cougars and other creatures (the homecoming theme being “;Rumble in the Jungle”;), I thought about the dichotomy of teenage life. Kids move in a world that changes moment by moment, and yet they are anchored in the predictability of the adolescent world view.

Even though my students can understand and use BlackBerry, WiFi and Facebook, year after year the homecoming parade sounds and looks the same, and the pep rally is always too loud, too long and too hot. I find it hard to imagine the duality of my students' lives, where traditions stay static while technology bolts along like lightning.

After homecoming, I got nostalgic for simpler times, so I dug out my father's 1938 yearbook. I was amazed to see so much I recognized: group shots of the National Honor Society, Key Club and Future Farmers of America, along with athletic teams, social clubs and honor groups.

Fashion has changed, but one thing has not: yearbook messages. My father's book was filled with cheesy and spookily familiar 70-year-old notes that kids had written to each other. They talked about what a great job they had done on this or that project, and how “;swell”; they were, and they wished each other luck in the future.

Like homecoming, some things really are durable. The reassurances these days use a different language, but the sentiments are the same. I'm happy to note that along with homecoming, yearbook messages are one of those traditions that have remained impervious to TiVo, texting and Twitter. The eternally optimistic nature of yearbook wisdom illustrates the durability of the human heart. There's just nothing virtual about writing that aims for the future, bcz u jst knt txt yrbk.

I was amused to read that at 17, my father's life ambition was to travel to South America. As it turned out, his first job took him to Brazil as an industrial chemist. His 1938 friends called him a great guy with no capacity for being grouchy, which still holds true 70 years later, and when he accidentally wrote a message in his own book, he used a joke that he is still using over dinner.

I like the idea that some things outlast even gas prices and the stock market—it serves as an anchor in the mayhem of modern life. In fact, it's very likely that the kids I saw painting each other blue to support their school will probably remain the “;cool”; and “;rad”; people their friends describe them as in their yearbooks. This means that they will most likely turn out “;swell.”; It gives me hope for the future.