Pomp and Circumstance in Junior High

What celebrations! What glory! We grandparents are astounded!

You young whippersnappers may not realize this, but in my day, there were no Junior High Graduation Ceremonies. Oh, we celebrated, all right – whooped out the school doors and ran for home on the last day of school, slipped into old shorts and tee top outfits, raided the freezer for ice cream bars, and flopped on a lawn chair to plan nothing but the endless days of summer ahead of us.

Having attended the formal commencements of our two grand pre-high-schoolers, Danny and Josh, on Thursday, I'm here to tell the world that it's a whole new era.

Danny Drysdale's midday ceremony was out of doors at the Cabrillo College campus, south of Santa Cruz. He was part of a large graduating class, but the process ran very smoothly, on a sunny, breezy sports field (parents and grandparents to the bleachers, graduates to the chairs on the grass). Afterward, the Drysdale parents took us old folks out to a lunch celebration for Danny's posse of buddies, and their parents and grandparents, at a nearby pizza parlor – the boys behaved better than the adults! The restaurant owner came by our table to tell us that these kids (who hang out at his place often after school) were the best behaved bunch he'd ever had in his restaurant: kudos to Julie and Bryan and the other parents in attendance!

The Drysdale celebration was twofold: that day Stephanie (who is just finishing her four years of high school this June) had learned that she's been admitted as a freshman at the University of Washington in Seattle! She starts college in September, and will have her Uncle Frank and Aunt Linda as mentors in the northwest, and cousins-in-college Caitlin and Justin, as buddies.

After we elders checked in at a Ramada Inn in Marina and had a brief rest, we then regrouped and went to the gymnasium of a local high school for Josh's evening commencement ceremony. As we entered, Kathie asked one of Josh's teachers where we ought to sit (in the bleachers again, of course) to get good photos. He said, "Josh is going to be in the front row – he's one of the 20 students from this class being honored for high academic achievement at this school – so sit right over there near the front, on the left side." With prideful smiles, we marched over and got good vantage places.

When the ceremony began, and when Josh walked up to accept his award as one of the most improved scholars in his class over the past two years, we cheered loudly and cameras were put to good use.

Joe and Kathie took us all out to a beautiful stone-walled old restaurant near Carmel for a gala late supper; Josh took the head of the table and chose his drink and his pasta with lobster-and-shrimp sauce with great style and poise -- and topped his meal off with a rootbeer float!

Now our boys are headed for high school next September: great times ahead..... much work, and fun, and a few more carefree years of youth.