by the hair of his chinny chin chin

Last night was the youngster's graduation banquet for getting out of 8th grade. Tonight is the actual graduation. It's a big time for him...more than I realized.

It is a big deal in most Catholic schools...leaving 8th grade. Some of the kids have been in that school since pre-K, while others have come and gone. The youngster started 3rd grade there and has been there ever since. I finished 8th grade in a Catholic school (St. Anthony's, if memory kinda serves), but graduation wasn't anything I remember. We had moved to California for the last 6 months of my dad's Air Force career. We got to beautiful downtown Atwater, California over Christmas vacation and left the summer after I finished 8th grade. I never got past being the new kid, and we were gone...and it wasn't a whole lot of fun. Being a military brat, I definitely was never anywhere long enough to make it feel like the family the youngster has, and the emotions I saw last night as they all realized they were going their separate ways...to 4 different high schools. I'm really happy he's had that atmosphere. It really was a big deal, and I think he benefitted from it. He'll still be with some of his peeps in high school, but others will go elsewhere.

At the end of the dinner, they got their yearbooks and report cards....and he squeaked through. We had our first talk about how high school can't be like that...and I think at the end of this year I saw progress, but I know that doesn't mean I (or the wife) can sit back, relax and let him go forth on his own. Not yet.