Yes, I do know how to spell "Graduate". Anyway, this past month our nephew Joe received his BA from Franklin and Marshall College. And, guess what? After four years of playing football and some pretty hearty partying, he still managed to graduate Cum Laude.
We went to Lancaster PA, the site of F&M College, with Joe's Mom and Dad, his sister Melissa, and his grandparents Frank and Helen. We all stayed at the "Lancaster Arts Hotel" which I described in the post on Joe's last football game. The graduation was on Saturday, as I said, but we stayed from Friday until Sunday for the general festivities.
Friday night, a group of parents of Senior football players got together for a dinner at a local restaurant. We attended with Joe, his Mom and Dad, his sister Melissa and his grandparents. The dinner was nice but the highlight came at the end when Joe gave a video presentation made up of photos taken over the years of himself and his buddies on the team. The photos ranged from some of the guys as kids to their wild ski trips as teammates and of course, the climactic last win against Gettysburg College last November.
The next morning we headed to the F&M campus for the graduation itself. We were joined by Joe's girlfriend Eileen, who had flown in late the night before from Massachusetts where she teaches high-school history. It was a nice day, partly cloudy with a mild breeze and not very hot - perfect for an outdoor graduation.
There were the usual honorary awards given and so on which I won't go into here. However, the commencement speaker was very interesting. He was a gentleman by the name of David Greene who is the National Public Radio White House correspondent. It happens that his mother had been a professor at F&M and he grew up right in Lancaster, so he was delighted to be asked to speak there.
Mr. Greene told a number of interesting anecdotes about the White House assignment and also spoke of things which happened while he was on the campaign trail following Clinton, Obama and McCain around the country.
Finally came the awarding of the undergraduate degrees which were handed individually to all 450-odd seniors. We were pleasantly surprised (though not too surprised) when Joe's degree was awarded Cum Laude. He received a BA in Business Organizations and Society with a minor in Economics.
Joe and Eileen
Joe with his Dad, Mom, and Melissa
At that point Joe's Mom and her parents had to head back to New Jersey so they could attend their granddaughter's College graduation on Sunday in Connecticut.
We attended the cocktail party with Joe, Eileen, Joe's Dad, and Melissa. Afterward, we went to a party at Joe's frat house for a while, but then us old folks were pretty much partied out and wandered back to the hotel.
One funny thing that happened was on the way from the cocktail party which was in a pub in downtown Lancaster to the frat house, Michelle, Melissa and Eileen rode with two of the parents who had their car, while Joe, his Dad, and a couple of his buddies were transported in style in the back of a U-Haul truck by another of Joe's friends. It was pretty funny.
The next morning we went for breakfast and then we went to Joe's house to pick up his belongings to bring home to New Jersey. Fortunately, we had three SUVs and a car, so we were pretty much able to get everything back.
And so, another young person enters the real world.
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