The Hooding Ceremony

We were cordially invited to Tom's Hooding Ceremony.

Now, living in South Carolina, the suggestion of a Hooding Ceremony can be alarming. It just doesn't sound good. So I was apprehensive. I looked it up & found it to be a type of graduate ceremony for post-graduate studies. It "denotes scholarly and professional achievements." OK, well, sure, Tom deserves that, I can hang.

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I continued to read:

"The vivid diversity of regalia for European degree holders brings to the American commencement such visual pleasures as sable berets, cardinal robes and other distinctive garb."

Now we're talkin'. Now we're goin' somewhere.

This I can support. Berets? Distinctive Garb? Visual pleasures? I'm all over that.

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Read on, sister. "Gown designs represent the levels of academic degrees. The master's gown has sleeves with .." Whoa. Say what?? "master's gown?" Master's gown?

Is he a master now? 'Cause I'm havin' a little trouble with that.

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I went & I supported him, but I'm going to have trouble referring to him as master.

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& don't jump all over me now. Check out the girls -- their "support" looks a little weak.

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Actually, Eva was the most supportive. She kept yelling "Go Grampsy!" and "Hi Grampsy!" Tom appeared to be 15 years older than all the other grads, so I'm sure the crowd knew for whom this little belle tolled.

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Following the Hooding Ceremony, (& following Tom displaying his 2008 gold tassel on the rearview mirror of his old person Buick) we took him out for a celebratory dessert ceremony. He chose the world's best pecan pie (Lizard's Thicket). I'm so sorry, but doesn't that sound just like a Grampsy? An old people restaurant for an old people dessert.

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I caught him here showing off his newfound graduate school brilliance. Another college degree pays off.