Sunthing Special

Yesterday we went to the Cuyahoga Falls Memorial Day Parade; it’d be a couple years since we had last attended. We went at the prodding of our youngest daughter and I’m glad we did. It’s always a poignant reminder of the sacrifice so many men and women have made for our country. A few moments really choked me up. One was when the family of Army Sgt. Bryan W. Large rode by. (Large, from Cuyahoga Falls, died while serving in Iraq in 2005 when he was 31.) His mother looked out the window and waved to the crowd, tears in her eyes. His young daughters rode in the back. (When I was just searching for info about Large from the Web to make sure I got his details right I came across his online guest book. The notes from his dad and sister from the last couple days are heart-wrenching.) Anyway … another moment that got me was when we were clapping for the men who were walking in front of Purple Hearts float. One of the men looked at us and said, “Don’t clap for us … clap for these guys” and pointed at the men behind him, as if he didn’t deserve the applause since he hadn’t been wounded in combat. In my mind, they all deserve applause.

Every time a married celebrity, sports star or politician is discovered having an affair (i.e. Tiger, Arnold), I wonder how they weren’t “outed” earlier. I guess in some cases the mistress is well-paid to keep her mouth shut, but how many other people must know about these dalliances? The couple must be seen in public somewhere, sometime; in fact, you often hear of locals saying (after the fact), “Oh yeah, so-and-so (the celebrity) came here with so-and-so (the mistress) all the time”. How does that not get back to the spouse, let alone the media, which tracks celebrities’ treks to Starbucks and the grocery store? Something about all this smells fishy to me.

I don’t know how common this is for high schools, but this was the first time I had heard of one handling its graduation like this. One of my nephews graduated Friday night with a class of about 100,  but the location was weather-dependent and wouldn’t be decided until sometime that day. If it were nice out, the kids would have their high school outside at the stadium and a graduate could invite as many people as he or she wanted. If it were rainy, the ceremony would be in the high school gym and only four people per graduate could come. So let’s say you had two parents, two siblings, three grandparents, a girlfriend, three cousins, two aunts and three uncles who wanted to see you graduate. And several of these people had come in from out of town (or state) just for this 7 p.m. ceremony. I’m not sure what time the school officials make this decision, but let’s say it’s 4 p.m. and they decide it’s okay to have it outside. Then there’s thunder and rain at 6 and you have to move it to the gym. How do you then limit the guests, who all had thought they were going to be able to go, from 14 to 4? If you’re a grandparent who came from out of state and now can’t go, how do you feel? It just seems to me that perhaps there might be somewhere else to hold the ceremony to not have to deal with this year after year? BTW, my nephew and his family lucked out — his graduation was held outdoors, ending just minutes before a huge downpour.

We rented “Gnomeo & Juliet” the other night, and I enjoyed it much more than I imagined I would. The premise sounded too weird — garden gnomes in a takeoff of “Romeo & Juliet”?? — but it actually made sense. I laughed at lame jokes like “may he rest in pieces” or clever bits like the “Terrafirminator” lawn mower commercial, I tapped my feet to the Elton John songs, and I felt smart when I got some of the references to the Shakespeare play. I guess it pays to be open-minded sometimes.

but if it means the fields will dry up enough so that the farmers can get their crops in this week before any more losses occur, I’ll try not to complain too much.

I just got a phone call from a company doing an opinion poll on local media. I can’t stand doing phone surveys because they always take 30 minutes instead of the five they promise, and it’s always hard for me to give ratings on a scale of 1-10 . Anyhow, the caller wanted to talk to someone in our house ages 18-39. The happy I got disqualified because of my advancing age!!