Happy Birthday Baby Girl (She hates it when I say that)!

Today is my daughter's 14th birthday.  I like to call her my best girl, she always tells me she's my only girl.  She manages to combine my love of books, and capacity for trivia that got me through school with her dad's love of music.  In fact if I can brag a little, she's one of those kids with talents in so many areas that its hard for her to settle down to just one thing.  She got awards at her final middle school assembly for having A's all year (the only one in her class) and for being about a 3.85 all year (her and one other girl) , an award she got all 3 years of middle school.

Throughout middle school she juggled choir, orchestra (viola) and dance, and still kept her grades up.  Her ability to multitask and her excellent audition got her into our local public schools performing arts program for orchestra.  I never would have had the nerve at 13 to audition.

Meanwhile she's a voracious reader.  Getting her a Nook of her own, with its capacity to download free books is one of the best investments I have ever made.  I never could have kept her in reading material.

Somehow, despite the occasional teen drama (of course there's drama, she's a Cancer) she is turning out to be a sensitive, thoughtful and conscientious young lady, and we are very proud of her.

So happy birthday to my girl.  Have fun shopping for the books I told you to get for the Nook.

Finish the Sentence Friday--"The Best 4th of July I ever had..."

Finish the Sentence Friday is taking next week off, so they are asking us this week to finish the sentence: The best 4th of July I ever had...
That would seem to be jumping the gun a bit, but when I tell you about my favorite 4th of July you will see the timing is perfect.

You see, yesterday was my birthday. I was born exactly one week before the country (though some years later, contrary to what my children think.)
Although we always did some small celebration at home the day of my birthday, naturally all the relatives weren't going to get together for picnics 2 weeks in a row, so I got used to celebrating my birthday on July 4th.

This brings me to July 4, 1976. It was the bicentennial. It was also my 16th birthday. My family had a pass to a local swimming park, so not surprisingly we celebrated my sweet 16 right along with the country's 200th, with a big picnic.

This is my 16th birthday. Note the Red White And Blue cake. And the pie with 1776 written in the cream.  And the little 1776 guys marching across the cake.

And my grandmother, who knitted each grandchild an afghan made my out of red/white/blue yarn. I still have it.

That night we went downtown and watched fireworks.

It was fun sharing the big birthday party.

This post is part of Finish the Sentence Friday. To read what other bloggers have to say about the 4th of July click here.

The Surgery Story

As I told you a couple of weeks ago, I had some recent health issues, involving my gall bladder, issues that decided to make themselves known on, of all things, a Monday.  A strict low fat diet, to be followed by laproscopic gall bladder removal was prescribed; the surgery scheduled for, of course, a Monday. Last Monday to be precise. 

Although delaying the surgery was the best thing for my health, it was positively the worse thing for my nerves.  I had 3 full weeks to contemplate everything that could go wrong with the entire business.  The more I thought about it, the more worried I got.

And yes I know this is the most common routine surgery performed in the United States.  Multiple acquaintances who had the same procedure testified to how quickly they recovered and how wonderful they felt now.  But still I obsessed on what could go wrong.

Several things were at work I think.  One was probably the diet itself.  Going cold turkey (pardon the expression) on so many of my favorite foods, including, chicken thighs, hamburger, kielbasa and chocolate probably got to my brain as well as my digestive tract.  I think for each pound I have lost a few brain cells have died as well.

Secondly there is simply my basic Irish melancholy which assumes that if something can go wrong it will, especially to myself.  The disclaimers the hospital issues with the information sheet do not help with this at all,  as they list the potential dangers of damage to other organs, respiratory problems, hernias and stroke.  Regardless of the rarity of such problems I see them all as happening, to myself.  And doesn't it seem that every time you hear a hospital horror story it involves someone who had gone in for "routine surgery"?

I especially found myself worrying about the anesthesia.  Part of the reason was simple, that a few weeks short of my 53rd birthday, I had never had general anesthesia. In fact for the most part, I had managed to avoid going any further at the hospital than the emergency room, and my only stays, and only local anesthetics had been when my kids were born.  In short I have never surrendered total conscious control.  For some reason I became totally worked up about this entire concept: "You could never wake up and not even ever know it" and other such disturbing thoughts.  Again the hospital handouts cheerfully reminded me that anesthesia is in fact one of the most unpredictable parts of any surgery." Look at it this way," said one friend, "if something does go wrong, you'll never know." For some reason I was not comforted by this.

So I did what any "sane" person would do, I tried to take control of what I could.  To this end I created a large manila envelope of instructions, "just in case" as it said on the cover, including copies of all bills, funeral instructions, last letters to a host of people and so forth.  Most of this will never see the light of day, because I have every intention of redoing the whole thing in a more orderly and less panicked manner.  Because it is a good idea to put all that stuff together, just not in a panic like I did it.

Anyway, the day finally, mercifully arrived. My husband and daughter and I went to the hospital.  (The Boy was working at camp.)   We went to a prep room where they got me all ready and then let me sit for 2 hours,  Finally they took me away.  They gave me something to relax me, and the next thing I knew I was in the recovery room.  My husband and daughter played 8 games of electronic Scrabble. The surgeon said he removed enough stones to open a jewelry store.  They kept me overnight to make sure everything was working fine and sent me home.  I went back to work on Friday, since I couldn't get an excuse note to stay out any longer.  So far I am a stereotypical success story.

So lessons.  Don't over think all this stuff.  If the doctor tells you something should be done, and the second opinion (if you feel you need one) backs you up, get it done.  Take whatever preparations you need to feel more comfortable with what it going on, but don't educate yourself to the moment of panic.  In the end, when you've done all you can,  trust whoever is looking after your care.  In this case they probably really do know what's good for you.


This post is part of the I Don't Like Mondays Blog Hop hosted each week by Linda Roy, going live this week for the first time at Elleroy Was Here.  Check out the hop and the cool new digs.

Finish the Sentence Friday--If I could Have Dinner With One Person From History it would be....

I have been thinking long and hard all week about this post.  The Problem, naturally is not that I can't think of anyone, but that I can think of way too many people I would like to have dinner with.

First of all, since the sentence did specify history, I chose to eliminate anyone from history who lived into my lifetime, meaning people like Joseph Campbell, Harry Truman and Rex Stout got the hook.  Then I started eliminating persons whom I admired, but heard weren't that great at dinner.  Take Henry II of England, great king with a fascinating queen (the legendary Elanor of Aquitaine) but he notoriously had no palate at all, ate dinner standing up, and was usually done in 10 minutes.  No I wanted someone celebrated for the quality of both their entertainment and their conversation.

I considered Thomas Jefferson, who built what is still the most beautiful house in the United States and entertained in it lavishly, celebrated especially for the quality of his wine cellar.  But I know I would have felt guilty about who was doing the cooking, since Jefferson famously took one of his slaves to France while he was an ambassador so he could be properly trained.  It left me a bit uncomfortable.

I considered having dinner with one of my idols, Edwin Booth, maybe in his later years at the Players Club.  He tended to be very shy around most women however, so I'm not sure how much fun we would have.  (Had this question been, what famous actor from history would you most like to see perform, he would win hands down though.)

Another person I would enjoy having dinner with would be Thomas More.  Utopia as it happens is one of my favorite books, and though I greatly disagree on the religious principals that he died a martyr to, I greatly respect his integrity and courage.  He was famous for the quality of the entertainment in his home in Chelsea and even more famous for the quality of the conversation.  Also he was a firm believer in the educating of women, both his own 3 daughters, and several foster daughters as well.  His daughter Meg was one of the most learned people of her time, male or female.  We would definitely have to stay off the discussion of religion though, because he would definitely have considered me a heretic.

Thinking of Thomas More, brings me to the entire Tudor court, one of the most entertaining and well educated in history.  Tudor England is filled with people who would make great dinner conversation, including Henry himself, Cardinal Wolsey, several of Henry's queens, and either of his well educated and talented daughters, both to be queens themselves someday.  Also hanging about would be Eustace Chapuys, the Spanish Ambassador, one of my favorite footnote people in history.  Maybe a big court banquet that all sorts of people were invited to.

It could be fun to have dinner with Shakespeare, just to prove he really did exist. Maybe he could bring Richard Burbage along to favor us with some poetry.  And I could ask a few questions about that darned Freudian interpretation of Hamlet, and what is really being contemplated in the To be or not to be speech.

Someone else I wouldn't mind having dinner with is the great Civil War hero Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. General Chamberlain was involved not only in the war, but in politics (he was governor of Maine after the War) and went back to be president of his alma mater, Bowdoin College so we could find a lot to talk about also. 



As you can see, I am really having difficultly deciding on just one person to have dinner with from history.  I may have to do this buffet style to accommodate everyone.


This post is part of Finish the Sentence Friday. To see whom other bloggers would like to dine with, click here.

Theme Thursday--Concert Going

I was already in college when I started going to concerts. During my high school years things like concert tickets just weren't in the budget, and even later such things were few and far between. But I have a couple really fond concert memories from those years.

The first concert I ever went to was Julian Lennon.  A friend of mine, who like myself was mad about the Beatles and anyone associated with them, and who like myself had actually bought and enjoyed the Valotte album, got the tickets and got us to and from the concert. Unfortunately they nabbed my camera at the entrance, and this was long before the everyone has a cellphone and its a camera too era, so I have no pictures of the show.  But I remember having a wonderful time.  (Many years later the same friend got me to Radio City Music Hall to see John Mellencamp, a double thrill, both the concert and the venue.)

Most of the shows I went to in college were performers who came to the University. One was the touring company of Beatlemania, which was technically a show rather than a concert, but since the show depicted the Beatles in concert, it was a kind of fine line.  The performers did a decent job of faking it, and the multimedia slide show that went with it was really well done.

My favorite concert I went to at the U was Don McLean.  He performed solo except for another guitarist, and he did all his best songs.  I bought seats as soon as they went on sale and got really good seats only a few rows back in the auditorium, so you could see the fingering on the guitars. I enjoyed it a lot.

But my favorite concert story involves seeing Buffy Sainte-Marie.  I hadn't intended to go to the show, but my future husband, a music major, had gotten to take a master class in composition with her, and wanted me to go to the concert since he couldn't. "And try to get her autograph for me if you can too" he said.  Ms. Sainte-Marie was performing for the benefit of a local Native American group, and then announced before the show that programs were for sale for 2.00 each and she would autograph them after the concert.  This meant I just had to buy 2 programs, one for me and one for the music major.  When I went after the show to get her autograph, I had her sign mine first which she did, then explained that my boyfriend had been in her composition class, but wasn't able to come to the concert. Right away her eyes light up, "Oh what's his name" she asks, then signing the program to him with "Wonderfully good wishes" and music notes. 

That's when I learned that musicians stick together.

Express Yourself--The Last Two Movies I Saw

Ironically the last 2 movies I watched were both adaptations of books by great American writers. Both are remarkable for their faithfulness to their source material, and for giving a great actor and iconic role.  That is however pretty much all they have in common.

Thursday was my day off, and I watched The Maltese Falcon. Adapted from the novel by Dashiell Hammett, which is one of the founding works of the hard boiled detective school, it was turned by John Huston, in his directing debut, into a founding work of film noir. Warner Brothers had already made 2 previous versions in the last 10 years. No one has tried to make another version, although a sequel was attempted in the 70's.  Legend has it that John Huston created the script by simply retyping the book's conversations as dialogue and its narrative as stage directions.

Most importantly, of course, it made a star of Humphrey Bogart; but it was also a break through film for Elisha Cook Jr., Peter Lorre, and Sidney Greenstreet.  Like many films of the 30's and 40's it is fascinating in part because it slips so much past the censors and right into the lap of the audience.

The torturous search for the jewel encrusted bird can be viewed on so many levels, detective film, meditation on greed and obsessive quests, a character study.

What lingers longest of course is the brilliance of Humphrey Bogart as the classic anti-hero, a cynical loner, but not without his own sense of honor and ethics.  The movie, like the falcon itself, is "the stuff that dreams are made of."

Sunday night, in honor of Fathers Day, TCM (my favorite channel) ran To Kill a Mockingbird. Its not the first time they have done this, but tonight it seemed a perfect movie to watch with my daughter. 

I have often said that if I were teaching film making I would show this movie as a perfect example of how to adapt a book into a film. I have read Horton Foote's Oscar winning screenplay and its effect is the same as reading the book, the only one I have read which I can say that about.

This time I watched with my 14 year old daughter, who normally disdains movies in black and white, but consented this time to please the mama.  I tried to abstain from techie talk during the film, but had to point out a few well filmed or well shot moments. 

The rest of the time I just cried at all the traditional gotcha moments, plus a few extra because it was after all Fathers Day, and I have been fatherless for 20 years, and well Gregory Peck is such a perfect dad in this movie.  (Short of watching Field of Dreams with my son, nothing could produce more tears on this occasion,)

 So this last couple movies I watched have been really great ones. Don't be fooled though.  I watch a lot of dreadful movies too. The Express Yourself Blog Hop just caught me on a good week.  Hope you got to watch a good movie this week too.

The Parka In My Closet

I was cleaning out my closet recently, something that is always an adventure, because it is a mini attic where I stash things I can't use yet don't want to lose. Near the back, stuffed in a corner I found the parka.

Even now, beat up as it is, you can see the quality workmanship. A blue cloth exterior and sheepskin style lining.  It belonged to my dad, a gift from his best friend who also had one.

It was twenty years ago that I got one of those calls that no one wants to get.  This one was to tell me that my father had died, while on an out  of state visit to one of my sisters.  Though unexpected, it was also a blessing, diabetes had been deteriorating his health for years.

He was many things. For  37 years in Scouting, he excelled at getting people to work together. A bank teller,  a gas station attendant, a loading dock worker,  but also a self taught student of history; a lifelong fan of the Indians and the Browns who revered Bob Feller and Bill Veeck and Paul Brown. He loved movies, and once he acquired a VCR devoted much of his time to taping all his favorite TV shows and movies, all color coded with reviews from the TV guide attached to the box. He had done the same with his record collection, copying everything to cassettes. He had custom length tapes made, cause he hated long silences at the end.

 Dad and me attending the 1985 Boy Scout Jamboree

I remember thinking at the time that I was lucky, that I had no real regrets or unfinished business with my dad. I still feel that way,but do have regrets for my children, who never knew their grandfather, particularly my son who is so like him.  They would have had so much fun planning his camping trips, or dissecting his baseball games. He would have been especially proud when The Boy joined the staff at the local Scout camp, one of Dad's favorite places on earth.

The last time I saw my dad I took him a gift.   I had bought him a print of Cleveland Stadium for his birthday, which was in late May, but decided to take it that April day instead, with the baseball season starting.  He was delighted, and my mom told me later that he showed it off to everyone that came to the house for the next week or so.  It was one of the few times I have had a true premonition lead me in the right direction.

A year or so ago, I gave the print to my son, feeling it was more suited to his room (which already looks like a Cooperstown road show) than mine, and knowing he would appreciate it--a gift across the generations.

Another thing my mom gave me after his death was the parka. I wore it in the winter for years, till it literally was falling apart.  Then I put it up in my closet, where it had stayed till now.

Me in Dad's coat

 I sat there holding it a minute, thinking of my dad, and his friend, both gone now.  Then I folded it up and put it in the far back of the closet again.


There are things I'm not ready to let go of yet.

 

This post is part of the yeah write weekly writing challenge which goes live on Tuesday. Click on the link and check it out.

Finish The Sentence Friday : "The hardest part about my day is...."

The hardest part about my day is going out the door in the morning. 

It's not getting up. I actually give myself extra time in the morning for one more cup of coffee and whatever is on the DVR that the kids don't like, be it last night's Daily Show or a MASH rerun. Sometimes I have civil adult conversations with my husband, while sometimes I just enjoy the peace and quiet.

I could be perfectly happy sitting here all day with the Keurig and the laptop and the TV.

But eventually reality sets in, arriving in the form of the minute hand on the clock telling me that I have limited time available for taking my shower, putting on my uniform, and getting to the bus stop.

That's the part I hate.  No matter how much prep I do the night before, no matter how much extra time I allow something goes wrong.  I can't a container for the leftovers, or one of my shoelaces breaks, or I don't have change for the bus. Or I get to the door and discover that its raining and I have no clue where I stashed my rain jacket. Something always seems to complicate things.

Eventually I get out the door and onto the bus.  If one of my bus friends is on we chat, otherwise I read.  When I get downtown I cue up my wake up play list and walk the last few blocks to work.  Usually I manage at least a temporary uptick in mood.

But oh that getting out the door.  Every day it's hard.

This post is part of Finish the Sentence Friday.  If you would like to see what other bloggers have problems with each day, click here.

Theme Thursday: 8th Grade was "the worst of times"

A lot of people traumatize themselves over their high school years, but I was never one of them.  Truth of the matter is I enjoyed high school far more that middle school. Grade school was very hard for me, not so much academically as socially.   Although I enjoyed learning in school a lot, and loved the chance for access to a greater variety of books, the truth is I was often verbally bullied by other students, and this was in an era where "teasing" by classmates and others was regarded as a normal part of growing up, and popular wisdom amongst adults was to not intervene.

The saddest part of all this is that I was attending a Catholic grade school. I did learn a lot of religion and theology, but I also learned that it wasn't necessarily applicable in everyday life.  I deduced this on the basis of how little attention was paid to my complaints to most of my teachers about the problems I was having. 

When I reached the 8th grade I hit rock bottom.  The previous 2 years I had teachers I had really enjoyed and who didn't put up with harassing at least in the classroom.  Our 8th grade teacher was something different.  She was in some ways a Prime of Miss Jean Brodie type, in the sense that she had definite opinions regarding the conduct of young men and especially young women.  I learned early on that I was not her kind of young lady.  When I complained of harassment by classmates I was told that when people are teased its usually because of flaws they needed to correct, and that if I were neater, cleaner and more lady like the harassment would stop.  To that end she appointed several of my fellow students to "reform" me, which basically amounted to pointing out my flaws when ever possible, with suitable suggestions for correction. To this day I break out in a cold sweat when someone, especially a supervisor, wants to "talk". I know its going to be critical, and no doubt entirely my fault.

Oh and did I mention that this teacher was the person who introduced my parents to each other? And that one of the reasons she did was that she thought it was disgraceful that my mother at 21 was still single? (It was the 1950s.)

It goes without saying that once my classmates, especially the males, realized that harassment would be encouraged, responded accordingly. If I attempted to defend myself it was reported back to the teacher.  Anything I said to her attempting to explain myself was re-arranged and reported to my parents.  I was depicted as such a total social disaster that I eventually wound up being sent by my parents to a charm and decorum class at a local department store. (I actually enjoyed that by the way.  The other students were friendly, no one there knew me, and the teachers generally concerned about us. I learned a lot, though I'm not sure anyone was impressed back at school. )  The year seemed to go on forever, but we finally reached the end of the year. 

To give an example of the sort of thing this teacher did, she decided that all the girls would graduated in long dresses. (Maxi skirts were in back then.) I mention in passing that my father was laid off, and I wasn't sure about a new dress, but I already owned a long dress my aunt had made for me.  She called my parents at home offering to buy me a graduation dress. I was mortified. 

Shortly before I graduated, I confided many of my doubts to a priest at the church. He gave me some of the best advice of my life-to wipe the slate clean and start over at high school.  Although some of my fellow classmates would be at the same school, they wouldn't be  the only people I would be around it. He told me to find new activities and new friends around those who didn't know me or my past. 

And he was right.  High school was a dream come true. It was also a Catholic school, but here the theology was backed by a code of conduct. Although I was only solidly in the middle of the school, flirting with the merit role from time to time, and although totally defeated by algebra, I found things I was good at, teachers who liked me, and people who are my friends even now. 

8th grade, on the other had, is a scar that is still healing.


This post is a part of Theme Thursday, a group of bloggers all writing each week on the same topic. To see what other bloggers felt were their best or worst years of school, click on the link below.

Mondays Haven't Been Liking Me Lately.

Two weeks ago on, (what else could it have been but a Monday?) I woke up at 2am feeling deathly ill. After 2 hours of repeated trips to the bathroom to throw up I called off from work. This really sucked because that Monday was  Memorial Day, a civil holiday, for which we are paid time and a half for working, while our fellow civil servants (and just about everyone else) gets the day off. The thought of lost overtime may have added to my already existing nausea, but after 6 hours of being relentlessly sick to my stomach I knew we were well beyond normal flu type symptoms,  The illness had come on so quickly my husband thought that food poisoning was involved, although no one else in the house was sick. 

Now I have to add here that I am almost never sick.  My last extended illness from work was 14 years ago and involved childbirth.  I can count on one hand the number of times I have actually needed a doctors slip because I was off more than 2 days from work.  And I have been to the ER exactly once on my own behalf in those intervening years, and was after taking a nasty fall on the ice.  So when I finally determine that something is wrong, it probably is really wrong.   I was getting repeatedly sick, I couldn't even keep Coca-Cola (which always works when I'm sick) down, and I was aching from my chest to abdomen.  Something was really wrong, and I told my husband we would have to go to the ER.

Fortunately the ER wasn't busy on a holiday morning, a good thing because I was still being repeatedly sick.  They gave me a cool little gadget, like a framed barf bag, with numbers up the side so they could tell how badly  I was losing it. Realizing that, no really something was wrong, they hooked my up to an IV, pumped me full of fluids and gave me anti nausea meds, thereby allowing to at least stop tossing my cookies every 20 minutes.  They also did a blood draw that determined my white blood cell count was way too high. Clearly something, somewhere was infected. So they rolled me down the hall to be CAT scanned. Shortly after the doctor came in to tell me that my gall bladder was full of stones and infected as well.  They wanted to take it out. Full surgery. The next day. 

Did I mention that the Boy was graduating from high school on the following Monday, prior to which, on Sunday, everyone we knew within easy driving distance was showing up at the house for his graduation party?
Not to mention that I really couldn't afford 6-8 weeks of being laid up at home, unable to work overtime?

The timing couldn't have been more atrocious, as I explained to the doctor.

He was understanding, mentioning that he had another gallbladder patient the same weekend with similar issues. Here's the deal he says. We'll pump you full of antibiotics for the night and if you levels are going down in the morning we can postpone the surgery a few weeks.  We might even be able to do it laproscopically by then, which is easier for both you and us. The proceeded to do just that for me, and it work. Surgery postponed. Much to my relief, not to mention my husband who was envisioning throwing the entire party together with the help only of 2 teenagers. Even if I couldn't lift, carry or scrub, I could do the running around. They threw one other loop however, a strict low fat diet till the surgery was done.  Now I'm not saying I want to run to KFC every night, but I do like food that has some flavor and contact with olive oil or butter or something somewhere in the cooking process.

I will save most my observations about the hospital experience for another post, because this is one is all about the Monday blues, but suffice to stay I got home in time for the party where I got to stare lovingly at the Boy's cake(one tiny piece with the icing off), the huge bowls of macaroni and potato salad, and my sister's amazing spinach spread and her chipped beef and cream cheese ball. My husband did whip me up some low fat alternatives so I didn't feel completely left out.  And I did take a chance on sampling the homemade ice cream. 

 In short I survived. I was only somewhat led into culinary temptation. Since then it's been some occasional fish and chicken breast and lots and lots of turkey. In the last 2 weeks I have eaten so much turkey based food I should own stock in butterball. Turkey franks, turkey bacon, sliced turkey, ground turkey,  you name it.

Last Monday the graduation went off fairly OK, though not without some plot complications mostly courtesy of the school administration.

So tomorrow it is Monday again and I get to go back to work.  For a week. Because the soonest the doctor's office was able to schedule the surgery was June 17th. If you are keeping count that is yes, another Monday.

Whatever Karma I owed Monday should be caught up by now.

So you can understand why when I saw Mod Mom's graphic for this week's blog hop I felt right at home:

Truer words have seldom been spoken.


This post is part of the I Don't Like Mondays Blog Hop, hosted by Mod Mom Beyond Indiedom.  If you haven't checked it out you should.

Wonderful Wednesday--Flowers in My Garden

Pictimilitude is hosting the Wonderful Wednesday blog hop. Its like Wordless Wednesday because its photo oriented, but we all know it's impossible for most bloggers to be wordless.  This week's Wonderful Wednesday topic is Flowers. As it happens I take a lot of pictures of flowers, in part because, unlike teenagers, they don't run and hide when you turn the camera on.

This is the bush in front of our house. It was already here when we got here 12 years ago, and I'm not sure what it is, but for about a week each year it blooms beautifully.  The rest of the time its just sort of there, but it's worth it for that one week.

I already paid tribute to this Spring's daffodils and they of course are finished for the year, but there are a lot of other beauties coming up now.
Our backyard is pretty small, only about 50ft by 25ft, but we do have a lot of nice flowers in it. Some of the rose bushes came from our last house, which makes them 13 or more years old.

 



We have more than roses in our yard though, here are some of our other treasures:

 





 

 

 

This post is part of Wonderful Wednesday. If you want to see great photos by other bloggers, click on the link below.

 

Wonderful Wednesday

Graduation Blues

Today is the day the Boy graduates. I'm sure I will have something lovely and heartfelt to say about this later, but for this morning (and this week's I Don't Like Mondays Blog Hop ) I have a complaint. It relates to the instructions we parents were given for the graduation.

 The  graduation instructions we received from the school state in part: "In recent years the formality traditionally associated with commencement has been obscured and the ceremony has taken on a more frivolous nature--complete with cheering crowds, popping flash bulbs, and graduates strutting across the stage. To maintain over all decorum...the following suggestions are made."

"Photographs should be taken before or after the ceremony, not during. Professional photos will be taken during the ceremony and be available for purchase."

The Boy came home with the order sheet for photos. For 20.00 we can have the privilege of a picture of our child actually receiving his diploma.  It will of course be copyrighted photo and therefore not legal to post anywhere.
Therefore there will be no photos appearing in this space or anywhere else of the supreme moment of the Boy actually crossing the stage and receiving his diploma.

"Do not cheer, whistle, yell or do anything to draw attention away from the graduates as they receive their diploma covers", and later "Please hold your applause till all graduates have been recognized."

I realize that in the eyes of many, graduation demonstrations have gotten out of hand. I might have thought so myself at one time, until I actually joined the struggle to get my kid through the last four years. The Boy attends an inner city school. Many kids that he started Freshman year  with have dropped out. The pressures of teen parenthood, drugs and alcohol, truancy and family chaos are all around them. Many of his classmates have parents who themselves did not finish high school. Moreover his school has a large group of English as Second Language kids, immigrant children who have made huge adjustments in culture, language, and education and still completed the state graduation requirements.  Although I am an applaud politely type, I think anyone who wants to yell or whistle when there kid finally makes it is totally entitled to. And every kid is entitled to a round of applause.

However, just to make sure we all behave, the children will only receive their diploma covers at the ceremony, the actual diplomas will be given to them afterward, and can be withheld in cases of inappropriate anything.

And then there are the contradictory instructions. On one page: "Boys should wear a white shirt and tie." The boy hasn't owned a white dress shirt since he was in the 7th grade choir. So we bought one, only to discover later, on a different page of the confusingly organized instructions: "Boys are to wear a light colored shirt, dark dress pants, and a tie." Not that a white dress shirt won't be of use to him as he enters the grown up world, but could someone proof read the instructions and make sure they match?

There are rehearsal instructions, ticket instructions, and ceremony instructions distributed randomly over 5 different pages. If a college graduate with a minor in English finds it hard to collate all this information, how the heck are first generation English speakers and high school dropouts supposed to make sense of it all?

I guess the point is this: This isn't merely a school event, it is a family event.  It is something the grads and their parents and families have achieved together. For many of these kids it will be the supreme moment of their academic careers If you really want your perfect dignified ceremony, then close the doors, only let the grads in, and hand them each their diplomas is secret. Otherwise let it roll.