Velociworld

Another Milestone

Well, Skeeter graduated from elementary school today. I attended, of course. It was at the high school, actually, so her big sister stopped in for the ceremony after her trig final.

Cunningham Creek is 9 years old, and I have had children in it for the last 7. It's going to be strange not having one there. It won't be the same taking the occasional morning off and sitting on the front porch with a mug of coffee, listening to the children sing patriotic songs in their earnest high voices. I used to take those mornings off on shuttle launch days, because I could sit on that front porch, listen to those children, and 12 seconds after lift-off the shuttle would appear over the schoolhouse roof. I'm not exactly close to Cape Canaveral, but I'm close enough to see the solid rocket boosters separate, and take their own errant paths to the ocean, while the shuttle climbed, climbed, and eventually disappeared. I miss those shuttle launches.

The principal informed us this morning that Skeeter's 5th grade class had the 3rd highest reading, 4th highest math, and 3rd highest science FCAT's in the entire state of Florida. That's probably a thousand or two elementary schools. Quite bitching, actually. That's why I live here.

I'll tell you a secret, though. I don't know where the beautiful people live, but it ain't Fruit Cove, Florida. Whew. There are some ugly mothers around these parts. I blame it on the influx of Yankees, of course, and the alarming upward mobility of the poor white trash in these parts. The high school moms look pretty good, even though, as a demographic, they are naturally older.

There. I have a conundrum to occupy me for the evening.