Graduation

Another grandchild graduated from High School. This if the fifth. . . Not possible!!! I’m not that old!

The first Grandson graduated four years ago here in Phoenix. He graduated from a large public high school with somewhere near 400 other kids. The next year, the oldest Granddaughter graduated from a small school on base at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. I think there were something like 25 other graduates. She was the youngest of her class as she was graduationg after her Junior year.

Last year the second Grandson and the second granddaughter graduated. Again, they had a large graduating class of around 400 other kids. The Grandson’s graduation was limited to only the graduates and their parents, while the Granddaughter’s graduation was totally a podcast – on line only! Both of these were as a result of and in the middle of, the Covid Pandemic!

As opposed to his older sister, this Grandson decided to attend a large public High School. He wanted to be anonymous.

The restrictions placed on the public due to the pandemic have been lifted, so we drove to San Antonio for the Graduation. We left Friday morning at 7 AM and arrived in San Antonio at 11 PM. The Graduation was the next morning at 9 AM at the Alamo Dome.

Another large graduating class.

As the graduates were filing in, I leaned over to my son-in-law and said, “Sure is different from when his sister graduated!” (a class of around 25 students)

And he replied, “And the parking was easier then, too!”

His name was called.

He walked across the stage, shook hands with the principal, got his diploma and walked off the stage. And that was it.

After everyone got their diploma, they tossed their caps in the air, and left. Outside the Alamo Dome, everyone congregated in a mass of humanity.

After lunch at my daughter’s house, we headed back to Scottsdale. We didn’t do it in one long drive, but broke it up by spending the night in El Paso. We also passed through Fort Stockton, Texas once again – I have made a seperate post about Fort Stockton – and drove through the bottom corner of New Mexico. (another post about New Mexico and a ghost town named Steins, NM). There is a third post about New Mexico and a giant Road Runner!

As we went through Tucson the next day, we stopped at McDonalds for a hot fudge sundae – basically a cup of soft serve ice cream with a little chocolate syrup on top, and a few chopped peanuts. We used to get these in Gila Bend, AZ on the way to San Diego, when we had a sailboat in the harbor there. We paid around $1.25 for them. McDonalds in Tucson wanted $3.10, and no peanuts! I guess that since one person in every 40 million people has a peanut allergy, that nobody gets peanuts anymore! Those who have this alergy cannot simply say, “No peanuts, please!” Instead, the other 99.99% of the world gets no peanuts!

I really should not complain about the higher price, because the kid making the ice cream sundae is earning $15.00 an hour now! I feel soooo much better that high school kids are earning a living wage, even if that living wage will not buy half of what the previous wage would have bought. Two years ago, kids making $7.50 an hour could afford to go to McDonalds. Now it is too expensive for them even with a living wage of $15.00 per hour. Basic Economics 101!

While waiting in line at the drive thru, we decided that we didn’t really want a cup of ice cream, so we drove away without paying, and without the sundaes. A mile away, we saw a QT convenience store. They serve soft serve ice cream cones. We stopped there and got two cones with three times the amount of ice cream we would have gotten at McDonalds – and only 79 cents each! Capitalism in its finest hour!

TTFN