After our “in the room pizza” dinner we settled down to prepare for the next day and (tried) to sleep. With all our advances in
technology, why can’t motel rooms have an air conditioner that doesn’t sound
like the space shuttle taking off? Even with
the fan set to auto, where it should shut off once in a while, the darn thing
just keeps blowing and howling. White noise wears off after hours...
Anyway, the next morning was the big “graduation day” for both FOJTY
and his wife. She was receiving her
degree from the Nursing school and they were having their own graduation ceremonies
at nine so as not to conflict with the general graduation at two. It was an early get up for the flutters
but we got suitably DFG’d, and rode with them to a smaller auditorium on campus
for the Nursing ceremonies. It
was a rather small class composed of undergrads and graduate students.
Of course there were the usual speeches by faculty followed
by the awards, with each student receiving their diploma (or facsimile) from
the dean. Our daughter in law
(FOJTYDIL?) received a hood recognizing her achievement of a master’s
degree. Lots of families were there, and
everybody was proud of their graduate. It
was a pretty fun time.
After that we returned to our motel and had a nice little
lunch courtesy of the “other” set of parents, and the kids opened gifts and we
had a good time. Soon enough we had to
leave for the afternoon session which was for the whole university. It was held in their fieldhouse, to accommodate
the largest graduating class ever from all schools and levels, around 1300 students . Upon arriving, even though we were early, the spectator seats were filling up fast, with a sea of chairs for the students.
At the appointed hour the candidates for graduation began
filing in to a live string section playing Vivaldi, (nice touch)
And soon the place was full to the rafters, the National Anthem was sung, and the program
began
The keynote speaker was the current governor of Missouri (Jay Nixon),
but of course the agenda called for “opening remarks” followed by message from
the (school’s) president, followed by the introduction of the person who was to
introduce Mr. Nixon. The introduction
was (as it turned out) about the same length as the actual speech, but come to find
out that this was an election year, which maybe explained the long litany of
accomplishments of the Gov guised as an introduction. In actuality
Governor Nixon’s speech was direct and contained the things that graduates need
to hear. College was nice, but now welcome to
life.
Following that, each school (Liberal Arts, Business, Math and Science, etc.) came to the front and each
student’s name was read, and he/she paraded across the platform receiving their
diploma (or facsimile) and handshakes all around. At first, it was pretty stately, with polite
applause for John/Betty Student. Well,
as things went on, the polite applause gave way to whistles, which escalated to shouts like
“yeah, baby!” and “way to go John/Betty” and finally one group got enamored of
the “who let the dogs out” barking and carrying on, and the graduated students did the occasional "raise the roof" dance leaving the platform. That’s fine, it’s all in good fun and it is a
joyous occasion when your children graduate college and friends and family are
entitled. One heartwarming and positive
thing was that during the opening remarks, the speaker asked all in the
student audience who were the first of their family to graduate college to stand up,
and a surprisingly large percentage did.
Maybe there is hope for us. FOJTE and his wife were also able to attend so we got to see our whole family on such a happy occasion. So of course we all cheered (no
barking thank you) when FOJTY and his wife were recognized, he for Criminal
Justice, and she for her nursing achievements.
All in all the ceremony lasted well over two hours, and
everyone was happy (but relieved) when it was complete. As parents, it is nice to see that your
children turn out okay… We were proud.
That concluded a long day, and in the evening we all went
out for dinner, but I’m going to delay that until the next edition when we’ll
try to wrap up the trip..(and four meals worth talking about) for which we of
course traded in DFG for
DFD
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