Little pomp, lots of circumstance

Hundred bucks, easy: that's what it will cost me for modest graduation gifts and cards and the makings of a surreptitious early morning cake-and-punch party for the two Seniors who will leave my classroom for the last time this coming Thursday, Lord willin' and the Missouri River don't rise. It isn't necessary, and I have no idea if it's expected, but I can't let this occasion pass unmarked. Besides, as my mother says, as she waits for her Social Security to hit the bank: that's what money's for.

Not having 150 new students each year like all the "regular" teachers does make my teaching world a different one. I've seen one of these graduates every school day since he was an eighth grader who wouldn't stop singing the "Cops" theme song. I know the civics credit on his transcript was a gift he certainly wouldn't have gotten from me. I have an invitation to his sister's quinceañera on my desk, dry-erase markers dubiously obtained from a job cleaning a city school up at the board, and memories of the awful year their father was hurt on the job. We have talked soccer, baseball, movies, politics, taxes, cars, TV, girls, computers, and education. We have studied history, science, math, and, yes, English together since 2002, and both of us have learned so much. How could I not spring for cake?