Rolling through the years ...

I’ve really enjoyed that cool and refreshing air the last few days … today I even wore a coat. I took a different route this morning and watched a young man blowing kisses to his daughter at the school bus stop just as that big ol’ yellow bus was drawing near. She was blowing kisses back to him and waving goodbye. That simple act made me wonder how many more days for that ritual? I’m guessing this is probably the last week for school to be in session for everyone.

Last week was Lincoln Park High School’s graduation. I noticed it in the online paper or on Facebook, but I neither saw, nor heard, any graduates zipping around with decorated cars and horns blaring. Maybe these days they just update their Facebook status or Tweet a picture in cap and gown, with the tassel appropriately flipped to the opposite side, and call it done?

It was forty years ago this week since I graduated with my Associates degree from Henry Ford Community College, which has recently rebranded itself as simply “Henry Ford College” - the picture above was the night I graduated and our little celebration at home. Just like the night of my high school graduation, it was a sticky-hot evening and I was similarly wearing a royal blue gown and mortarboard, but it was a much smaller gathering … after all, we had 613 grads in our high school class. The guest speaker at HFCC graduation was the Honorable Justin Ravitz, at that time, a controversial sitting judge from Detroit Recorders Court. His spiel was pretty animated and he ticked off a few of the higher ups at the college, though I can’t for the life of me remember the controversial topic he spoke of. I enjoyed my time at HFCC because high school had been very clique-y and one had to move in certain circles to write on the school newspaper, participate in student government, or be involved with fun extracurricular activities. Attending HFCC gave me that opportunity to do those things. I was on the staff of “The Ford Estate” newspaper and authored the student handbook. I also was involved with student government and part of a group of six students that spent a week in New York representing the country of Egypt at the National Model United Nations Conference.

Wow – forty years! Where did the time go? It seems as if it rolled on by, yet sometimes it feels like just yesterday. Seeing that little girl at the bus stop somehow made me feel old … that might have been me some 55 years ago.

Time is fleeting. It is Flag Day and about half of June is done already … every morning on the radio they say how many days are left in the year – 200 as of today. I’m just shy of the 300-miles-walked marker due to the weather, some errands and being busy at work which caused me to miss a few forays … I hate that. The upcoming stormy weather will similarly delete the next day or two from my walking agenda, yet I remain hopeful I’ll reach that long haul of 350 miles by the long holiday. Is it doable? Just stay tuned!

You can catch up on my blog posts before I started blogging at Patch in August 2013 by going here: http://lindaschaubblog.net/