The Banana Graduates: Part 2

We somehow lucked out and got the most amazing seats for the graduation ceremony, even though we didn’t arrive particularly early compared to lots of other families. We spotted a swath of seats near the bottom of the seating in a section not too far from the front, and in fact, no one had claimed them, so we parked ourselves there!

This was a graduation ceremony that will probably not be soon forgotten. The entire class of 379 students walked in and sat down. The faculty walked in and sat down. The school board and administration walked in and sat down. The first student speaker walked onto the stage to welcome the audience, and the sound system in the arena did not work. After many tries from a technology person, it still did not work! In fact, it was a 50 minute delay before they brought in a different set of speakers that sort of worked for the microphone on the stage. While the last third of the names of graduates were being read they actually got the real sound system back on track.

In the meantime, the choir and orchestra spontaneously went back and forth entertaining us with songs that were not supposed to be part of the program. This meant that The Banana was all over the place: in her seat, in the choir, in the orchestra, back to her seat, back to the orchestra, back to the choir, back to the orchestra! The choir and orchestra were on opposite ends of the arena, so she got a good deal of exercise in her high heeled shoes. Good thing she’s been practicing walking in high heels since she was two years old! I found the whole episode to be highly entertaining! (Although it DID make for a long night!) The entire order of the well-rehearsed program was upended, some things left out entirely, and no one really knew what was going to happen next!

Eventually all the graduates graduated!