Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for May 22, 2013

Congraduations……..

Naw… it doesn’t work that way…. not with the kids I’ve know….

They send out “announcements.”

They’re only given a few precious “invitations” or “tickets” to the actual ceremony….If you get one of those you’re on the A-list indeed.

The image in Arlo’s imagination totally works for “health clubs” and gyms, though….they’ll cheerfully take hundreds of dollars from 10 times the number of people who could fit in the building shoulder to shoulder…knowing most will never show up.

Except the first week in January….when they look like that.

when my daughter was a senior in high school she only got 4 “tickets” and had to make a decision on who to invite besides her mom and dad, there was grandmother, sister, brother, step dad, step mom, so it wound up being Mom, Dad, Grandmother, and Sister. Lots of hurt feelings Then when she graduated from college she had 8 tickets but folks kept leaving after their graduate received their diploma so there was plenty of room.

Tossing an invitation? Pretty cold!

We received a graduation announcement for Hillary Tidd in Georgia..I assumed it was via some contact of Patsy’s.She assumed it was some relative or friend of mine..It turned out they had a David & Patsy Green for uncle and aunt here in Florida and figured it must be us.It also turned out there were six David & Patsy Green couples in Florida..When the mother, Caroline Tidd, gave us more information, we found the pair they sought, both mailing address and phone number..We sent Hillary a University of Florida gator, stuffed doll..We kept in touch, knew when she was graduated from Georgia Tech, started teaching, married, had children..Some day we’ll meet.

Toss the Graduation invite….keep the Open House notice….if you think the food will be good.

My son just graduated from early college. They gave 11 tickets to start and we asked for 10 more and got 5. Large family – of course the grandparents from both sides wanted to be there, the siblings, aunts and uncles. A lot more people are invited to his party.

“Not cost effective.”I flew up from Florida for my younger daughter’s MA or whatever it was in Music Theory from the U. of North Texas.. For her MA or whatever in Library Science a year or so later, I passed. We were MA- or whatever’d out. She actually got a job for awhile at the Beverly Hills, CA, public library as a music cataloguer. Had to help pick up books after the earthquake of ’94.

did Gene ever get his degree? remember Gene their kid? they pay more attention to their cat. don’t they have a boat? maybe Sandy wrecked it and killed the kid and his family? for all their interest, maybe?

I’m glad that mine was held in Bulldog Stadium….plenty of room for everybody with seats to spare.

My Son graduates from HS this year. Our closest relative is over a thousand miles away.

Wow some teen really made her mad to toss it in the trash!

Remember, we only see a small slice of life out of a few of their days. I’m sure they talk to the kids quite often off camera. (That is if they were real people) J.J. will probably have an arc over the summer at the lake with the kids. It’s natural we would see more of Luddie, as he actually lives with them.

I thought Arlo was thinking about an after graduation open house, but that doesn’t look like a private home. It doesn’t look like a school, though, either. As has been said, invitations to the graduation ceremony are usually limited, but the open house held after can be as big (or small) as the family wants.

My school had limited space, and LOTS of people who wanted to bring lots of family, so they asked that everyone who wasn’t going to use all their invites turn them back in or pass them on. I was an only child and my nearest realtives were all far away so I gave my extra to my roomie so all of her siblings could come.