Graduation day

The youngest Northview kid comes to the end of his public school career today. In August he will be moving on to SUNY Cobleskill to begin studies in fisheries and wildlife. I am pretty excited about that and can't wait to learn vicariously about fish and snakes and deer and such. It has been that way with both the girls. They learn amazing and interesting stuff and they share....as someone who dropped out of college I treasure all that vicarious knowledge. Fisheries and wildlife is going to be icing on the cake.

Anyhow, I have been much asked over the past week or two how I feel about the graduation of our baby.... Melancholy? Sad and depressed? Really proud? Getting old in a hurry?

To the first couple I have to say, not so much. The end of high school in itself is actually going to be something of a relief. The boss was on the school board when it voted not to reinstate the infamous bottle bombers to the football team. It was not a popular decision and we always felt that the girls suffered for it. By the time this kid came along it wasn't so pronounced, but it was there in the background for years....a sad commentary, but there it is. There were and are many fine teachers who disagreed but rose above it and I salute them....like them in fact and will miss them. And there are some pretty silly things going on in schools today, such as making the kids drive around to places like the welfare office so they can learn how to sign up....I don't hold much esteem for that nonsense either and won't be missing it.

As for the real proud part, we are sort of equal opportunity, real proud of all the kids, pretty much all the time, type parents. Along with loving the kids as expected, we like them. They are fun to be around, interesting people. Growing up has made them more fun and more interesting then ever. They all, each and every one of them, have much to teach me, both what they have picked up in school and how to live better. As another blogger said last week, they are truly much better, more finished, mature and thinking people than I was at their age (or at many ages later too). Graduating is rather just another expected step in life. I am more likely to feel real proud when the kid comes home and tells me one of his friends came to him for advice on some thorny, adulthood-approaching-in-a-hurry problem, and he offered a truly helpful and mature answer than about being done with school.....or when he takes a hold and gets things done unexpectedly and well (thanks for chopping out those paths, buddy). Or when he comes home from driving with his newly-minted driver's license and tells me about some wise driving decision he made. Everybody pretty much graduates from high school. Not everybody grows up to be somebody you like to be around and want to spend more time with.

I will miss hearing about the hilarious antics of the Spring Sports Club though. That is a pick-up sports league some of the boys invented in order to play sports, mostly hockey, without the hoopla that goes with the parents and coaches getting involved. They played every night after school, policed themselves and each other and had a heck of a time. That makes me real proud indeed, as well as reminding me of some of the things my next younger brother and I got up to....we were an independent pair too. There was that underground newspaper we ran off on the mimeograph machine in the parents' cellar....and playing the fish cheer when our rock and roll band was invited to perform for a school assembly (quite an honor that, and WE sang it right....can't say the same for our classmates in the audience.) Inevitably I will see less of the kid pretty soon and I will miss him like only a parent can imagine. He claims to be my favorite, and although parents aren't allowed favorites, and darned well better not have any, he certainly is my favorite son....and he can claim to be one of my favorite kids...one of three can't be that bad can it?

As for the getting older fast...been there, done that, and got three tee shirts. I can still hobble around though so I guess it's not too bad.
I hope he has a great time in the either way-too-hot or way-too-cold auditorium today.
And that college is all he wants it to be.
That he is ready to take life by the horns and make what he wants from that too.
Good luck Alan
Your mama loves you!