Graduation

Tuesday night was Josh's high school graduation. The place was packed. There were twenty more graduates than at Jonathan's last year and it showed. Fortunately, we got there early and got decent seats plus managed to hold spots for both of our families.

Josh was one of two valedictorians. Both of our sons were valedictorians and as you might guess, I am pretty proud of them. They took hard classes (Calculus, Physics, etc) so they certainly earned it. Josh did his speech on "Attitude Determines Altitude". He did a great job on it. Transcripts are available for a nominal fee :-). Afterwards, Josh went with some of his buddies to eat and then come back for Project Graduation. This is (as you probably know) where they lock the kids in until the next morning to ensure a "chemical free" night. From what Josh told me and pictures I've seen, it looks like a lot of fun for them. Its better then most graduation nights I was familiar with in the past in this area which turned out to be huge drunken bashes.

It was an emotional day. Donna called me that morning and I could tell she was really upset. She finally told me that she was upset because Josh was leaving for school for the last time. She could remember when she sent him to pre-school for the first time and now he was done with school. I do not know how we'll ever get home from Lexington in August after we drop him off. I imagine sedation of some type will be in order. I am reminded of a lesson Jim Faughn preached where he referenced Psalms 127:4-5. These verses compare children to arrows in a quiver. He also talked about the coming when those arrows come out of the quiver and are shot into the distance. We're nocking our bow with one right now and it'll be let loose in a few months...

Literature

I enjoy reading a lot. My favorites are the Bible and various classic literature by writers such as Mark Twain, Jules Verne, and Robert Louis Stevenson. I have given up on reading most modern literature. For example, I tried to read Stephen King's "Bag of Bones" years ago and found it so vulgar that I gave up. The only "recent" fiction I've read is the Harry Potter series. I still read a lot of non-fiction (Finance, Bible study aides) books plus books of facts like almanacs.

A favorite classic of mine is the "The Scarlet Pimpernel" by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. I was reminded of this recently when I saw the Facebook page of a young man (Derek Ratliff) I go to church with . The story is about a man who appears to be a brainless rich aristocrat who turns out to be a dashing brave famous hero (The Scarlet Pimpernel) who saves French aristocrats from the clutches of the French "Reign of Terror". Does the general premise of that sound familiar (rich man who is actually a hero that nobody could believe would be him)? I've always felt that this book was the forerunner of the disguised superhero genre that is popular to this day (Bruce Wayne/Batman, Tony Stark/Ironman, etc). It's not an immensely long book (about like Treasure Island). It has some history in it concerning the French Revolution. I'd recommend you give it a read.

What I've just found out is the Baroness wrote other prequels and sequels to this book. I am already scouting out a few to buy to find out the further adventures of "The Scarlet Pimpernel"

Oooh, Donuts...

I have loved Red's Donuts for as long as I can remember. Their original shop was on Bridge Street. I can remember in my youth getting a Large Dr Pepper, four soft shell tacos from Taco John's and then getting 6 of their fabulous chocolate iced-cream filled donuts to top it off (this would be after a couple of rounds of Putt-Putt golf). That was back in the day when I could eat and eat and never gain an ounce... I have learned not to buy donuts anywhere in Paducah since I am always disappointed when I do.

They moved to a location on Jackson Street some years ago. It's right on the way to where we worship (Central church of Christ) and we have to constantly resist the temptation to stop in and grab some. This morning, Donna wanted to buy some donut holes for the Ladies Tea at Central. If you don't know what donut holes are (I actually met a guy from New York City a few years who didn't), they are the little pieces of donut that are cut out from the center of a regular donut and fried and covered in glaze. They are excellent especially when they are fresh like they were this morning (second only to the chocolate iced - creme filled I mentioned before). I had to make myself stop from eating all of them along with the chocolate iced - creme filled I bought so there would be some left for my sons.

Anyway, they now put advertising on their boxes. Donna and I always find it funny that this advertisement is on there.

Tennis anyone?

Yesterday was the Regional Tennis Tournament at the Larry Heflin tennis complex in Lone Oak. My younger son Josh is finishing up his third year playing tennis. He had played very little tennis up until high school (in gym class). I remember him coming home to say he was joining the team. I was a bit surprised but we played a lot together over the past few years to help him practice. I used to be able to beat him no problem, then we got to where we played close matches. This year, it's a different story. He beats me easily now. Last Sunday afternoon, he beat me 8-0. I didn't play that bad, he's just gotten better.

He's had to play the one seed this year, so he's had to play a lot of good players and he didn't win as many matches as when he was the three seed last year. He's also running track (the long distance events) so he has to run back and forth between practices and matches/meets.

Anyway, he wanted to win one match at the Regional as his goal. He drew a player from Heath. Both of their matches were rained out this year (as were several others) so he knew nothing about who he was playing. Watching them warm up and play they looked pretty evenly matched. He lost the first set 6-2 and was down 3-1 in the second but came rallying back to win 6-3 and then won the decisive set 6-2. He was thrilled. His reward was to play the 2nd seed from St. Mary who was very good. Josh did manage to win a couple of games, but lost 6-0, 6-2.

I'll miss watching him play and especially our games together once he goes off to school. We talk and have quite an enjoyable time when we go to play.

As a bit of trivia, Larry Heflin was my 10th grade Geometry teacher at Lone Oak. Probably neither of us would like to admit that this was 32 years ago... Also, Josh's tennis coach was his geometry teacher as well.