SERENDIPITY PHOTO STORY PROMPT

WEDNESDAY – 2015 #8

Welcome, again, to Frisbee Wednesday. I don’t have two posts in me this morning, so I have linked to the Daily Prompt for no reason, except to let my friends know I’m here. If this confuses you, I’m sort of sorry, but not really.

Today we celebrate the sound of a wren singing and a sliver of sunshine I saw briefly this morning. I didn’t realize it was Wednesday, honest to whatever until I saw Evil Squirrel’s post. “Self,” I said to myself, “I have to do something about this.” And here I am, in the middle of our late spring mini-winter, doing something.

So that you can, on this hopefully improving day, write something about a picture. Or think about doing it. My picture, your picture, someone else’s picture.

My picture for this week …

Please try to add your own ping back (links). If you aren’t sure how to do it, put your link in a comment. That works too.

I didn’t honestly think I’d do it this week, but no matter where I am, I feel the call … especially since the weather has been miserable, cold, rainy, and in the tall mountains of Vermont, there was sleet. In June.

Please link back to this post so other people can find you. And me. My effort for this week follows.

 A FACE IN THE CROWD

I haven’t talked about my granddaughter’s high school graduation. First and foremost, let me say this about that. It happened. She graduated. Not merely did she graduate, she graduated on the Honor Role. She got into the college of her choice. Has a scholarship to cover tuition and books. Found a great job with training, decent pay, employment to coördinate with classes. Well, bust my buttons, who’d have thunk it?

After all the angst and drama of Kaity’s personal high school reality show, the kid got it done. No one is more thrilled than I, except perhaps her over-indulgent grandfather, aka Garry “The Legend” Armstrong.

That’s the good part. The rest …

After a month of May during which no rain fell, graduation day dawned dark, cold, and rainy. With a hint of foreboding. The family — me, Garry, Owen (dad), and Sandy (mom) — gathered in the parking lot of the new high school. It was too early, so I suggested brunch. We adjourned to the breakfast joint in town and ordered the usual. Bacon. Eggs. Home fries. Toast. Coffee.

It took a long time to get the food. Every other parent and grandparent was also fortifying him or herself for the upcoming event.

Scheduled to start at one, the festivities started at one. Without being able to use the great outdoors, the graduates, appropriately gowned and capped, marched around the gymnasium. They were smiling, giving little waves to the occasionally whooping audience.

We are not, as a family, whoopers. We managed some enthusiastic applause when we weren’t taking pictures. You knew we’d be taking pictures, right?

Garry had coerced a friend who is a videographer to shoot too, so it was an effort worthy of Cecil B. DeMille. We were all ready for our closeups.

The gym was hot, airless, and smelled like sweaty parents. Initial enthusiasm faded quickly as endless, dull speeches, heavily laden with every cliché ever used at such an event, commenced. And commenced. And commenced. Local pols and students with apparently no time restrictions droned on, interspersed with a band which tried hard to end at the same time — ultimately succeeding in at least that. My mother believed if they ended together, they were not a complete failure.

The singers … well … it’s hard to justify them. Bad doesn’t cover it. An American Idol judge would have felt obliged to physically eject them from the stage. With extreme prejudice.

After they (mercifully) ended, the audience sat in stunned silence, grateful for a respite. All too soon, the principal arose from her chair to begin the longest, dullest, most amateurish speech in the history of high school graduations.

It wasn’t merely too long. Her abilities as a public speaker were profoundly lacking. Maybe she’d written the speech the night before and not read it through, counting on her talents (NOT) as a thespian to carry the day. She should have skipped it entirely. It was a bad speech given by an inept speaker to an uninterested and slightly hostile audience.

She stumbled, back-pedaled, tried (obviously desperately) to find something to say about each graduate, even when she clearly didn’t know the kid. At all.

The audience was slumping, murmuring. My back was spasming. Garry was limping. Graduates were talking lethargically amongst themselves about what they would do later … if they were ever finished with this … ceremony.

By the time it was over, the wind outside had picked up, the temperature had dropped into the low forties. Party plans were abandoned due to exhaustion. It was almost four pm. It was pouring, but at least the speakers, screechy singers, and off-key instruments were — at long last — silent.

We were allowed to creep out of the bleachers and go home. We had survived. Don’t we at least deserve a tee-shirt?

We survived Graduation 2015. On to college!

Categories: #Photography, Events, Family, Humor, Personal

Tags: #Photography, anecdote, family events, Graduation, humor, Serendipitous Photo Prompt 2015-8