Graduation

Youngest Daughter had her graduation ceremony Friday night. The sky threatened, but no rain came until well afterwards, which was good since families are only allotted 4 tickets for an indoors venue and we’d not all have made it. They’d marked the marching path with small American flags, and one young man in a wheelchair waited for the rest to show up. YD had been ambivalent about graduation, and had warned us that she might break down crying, but she played her role well. She was among the first couple of dozen to receive her diploma, and waited patiently for the next hour.

The graduating class numbered about 400, so the march took ten minutes and the band got lots of practice with Pomp and Circumstance. The teachers, following up at the rear, took a shortcut across the field to get to their seats.

With 400 students to award diplomas (and honors tassels) to, the event was bound to take a couple of hours, and so the speeches were mercifully short—except for the class speech about “we are the future" which took about 4 minutes and was about 4 minutes too long. Noble sentiments really ought to mean something. The class salute tried for humor instead, and mostly succeeded.

The students sat in red and white columns: the men wore red and the women white robes. There were a dozen unpaired women at the end of the procession—a wit behind us noting that they looked like a group of nuns.

The beach balls made their usual appearances despite the segmented amphitheater arrangement of chairs. The balls batted about until they came within reach of a teacher. It’s a more or less harmless custom, but distracting. The ambulance stuck around for about 20 minutes and left without sirens blazing, so I assume the injured party in the distant stands was OK.

The sky grew darker, and camera flashes emulated lightning. My better half pointed out grads who had been in kindergarten with YD, or in 4H. I have no idea how she remembers all these names. Two teachers read names in turn, and paired teachers and school board members took turns handing the folders and shaking hands.

After the ceremony, traditionally the students leave the football field through the bleachers and congregate for photos and congratulations in the soccer field above. Since the diplomas themselves were given in the school building, YD logically went to the first set of steps to the school instead; confusing those of us who thought of tradition (and photography!) rather than logic.

YD was hummingbird hyper, and could barely stand still enough to receive the roses from her sisters and younger brother. She squealed greetings to friends as everyone rushed to and fro, with cars slowly trying to ease out of the parking lot in the background.

I think she enjoyed it. We were happy.