Homecoming

It's Homecoming season again! For those of you who might not know, (seriously?) Homecoming is a special event in high school. I was asked what "Homecoming" was for, and the best I could come up with was this: homecoming is usually the third or fourth weekend of the school year, which often corresponds with the first weekend all the college kids choose to come home for a visit. (They only have so many clothes before they have to do laundry.) Therefore, a bunch of "alumni" are in town, and would like to see a football game. Over the years it has become less about the "homecoming" alumni, and more about the current high school students. Or at least, that's what I remember. Let's all take a trip back in time, shall we?

The husband and I live in the same small town where we went to high school. Our high school mascot is a Sheepherder. No, I'm serious. You can't even make that up! (H-E-R-D-E-R-S, Herders are the very best!) The official pic is shown above. (Yes, there was quite a ta-do recently about his "tobacco" use, which provided much fodder for those letter-to-the-editors.) While the husband was not much of a "joiner", I myself was very into the whole high school experience. I was a cheerleader for three years. (I was captain for two of those. It's not as awesome as it sounds.) I was also a varsity volleyball player, an award winning speech & drama geek, and played the flute in the pep/marching band. (Our school was in a parallel universe where it was cooler to be in the band than it was to be a cheerleader. I'm not kidding. There were 200 kids in our school, 9-12, and there were 108 kids in the band and only 5 cheerleaders. Band was cool here, take my word for it.)

The Teen is a freshman this year, and this is his first experience with a "small town" Homecoming. (The Sailor's high school is quite large, and homecoming just isn't as big of a deal there.) Last week I asked him if his class had decided on a parade float for the Homecoming parade. He looked at me like I was crazy. He just couldn't get the Macy's Day Parade out of his head and simply couldn't wrap his head around a home-made, chicken wire/tissue paper parade float, mostly due to the fact that his previous city never had parades like this. I asked him about the dress-up days, like "pajama" day and "toga" day and things like that. I asked him about the marching band's half-time show. (He is a drummer in the marching band.) No clue. This made me think that A) Homecoming is simply not as big of a deal as it was when I was there 14 years ago, or B) the Teen does not pay attention to what is going on around him and this disregard for his surroundings means I should spend a little more time teaching him how NOT to get hit by a bus. (My money is on option B.) But, I think he is finally figuring out the "happenings" this week.

First, he informed me that he could wear his pajamas to school Monday morning. (I had told him this was usually the case, but of course I have no idea what I'm talking about.) And the other "dress-up" days were Safari, Twins, Royalty, and Blue and White. Game day is always Blue and White, the school colors. But Safari day? What is that? And Royalty? I don't get it. Back in my day, (if you are under 17 feel free to roll your eyes and tune me out now...) the days were more like Toga day (obvious), Nerd day, Boy/Girl day (boys dress like girls and vice versa). But Safari? What would that be, exactly?

The band is playing a Michael Jackson song (duh) for the half time show, and the Teen had been chosen to march with the bass drum. This is funny because he is literally half the size of an average 14 year old. (He is quite short) Him marching with a bass drum should be something to see!

A couple things have changed since I was there. For one, they now nominate homecoming kings as well as queens. My senior year, there were only queens and my class nominated a boy to be Homecoming Queen, to demonstrate the reverse sexism. Now they have both. Another change is they have float "themes". When I was there it was anything goes, but now they give the classes a theme to follow. This year's theme is "boardgames", and the 9th graders have chosen Operation as their float idea. I actually think the theme concept is good, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the other classes do. (Some people might also be curious as to what the other classes are doing for their floats. The Teen is not one of them.)

I'll try to get some pictures and get back to you with the results of the week. In the meantime, Go Herders!

Can you hear me now?

I was always taught that the ears were in charge of the "hearing" a person does. Turns out that is not entirely accurate. I once saw a Rose is Rose comic strip that summed it up quite well. One of the little boys was telling the mother that people actually hear with their eyes. She was correcting him, reminding him that we use our ears to hear. He held her face between his hands, looked her straight in the eye and asked, "Now, don't you hear me better like this?" And she had to agree. And so do I, because that is the only way I can get my kids to hear a word I say! I thought about getting their hearing checked, but these same children can hear ice cream being scooped at a thousand paces, so it must be selective. There is something about the specific pitch of my voice that does not register in their ear drums, so clearly reading lips is the only way I can communicate with them. Well, that and turning off the TV. They hear that message loud and clear!