The Graduate

So my son graduated from high school Friday evening. The first thing that I noticed when he was in the lineup of other graduates was that he wore his mortarboard at a jaunty angle.

I believe you are supposed to have it parallel with the floor. I wondered if the graduates-to-be are told that, and if they are did he hear it? Oh well, If he wants to project a devil-may-care-attitude, that’s fine with me.

After the ceremony, when graduates were back in their seats and they were pronounced graduated, they all flung their caps into the air. It was a great sight, but all I could think of was “Jacob! Don’t lose your cap! I need that for your sisters!”

I'll be 57 when my twin daughters graduate. I remember sitting at kindergarten round-up for Jacob and thinking, “I’m 10, 20 years older than the other mothers here and I still have two more to go.”

Good thing numbers have a way of not staying constant. You could buy a bottle of pop for 15 cents in the 1960s. Now it’s $1.50. Conversely, 57 was realllly old when I was a kid, but it’s realllly young nowadays.

(Note to commenters: That inflation-deflation comparison makes sense if you don’t think about it for more than 5 seconds.)