A College Graduation!…….If you had?????

Ah yes free folk of Middle Earth, welcome once again to another addition of the Hobbit Hollow Construction Blog!

It really is supposed to be a construction blog. It hasn’t really felt that way much as of late. And if you took a look at the title your probably guessing that there isn’t going to be much in the way of construction going on this week either….. and you would be right!

So the Editor, myself, Georgia, Jude, and Terence all headed up to SUNY Cortland to see Ethan’s graduation ceremony. It’s not a huge school but there were three ceremonies that day so that they could accommodate the crowd. Morning, afternoon, and evening. We got saddled with the evening session. Which actually turned out alright. We had an early dinner with Ethan and then went over to the ceremony at 7pm. It was great seeing him. He graduated cum laude with a degree in communications and a degree in history. We were all so proud of him. We stopped by over at his house off campus before the ceremony to check out his house and to meet some of his friends who were hanging out there. It was nice. They were all kind of cute if you know what I mean. You know we were all congratulating them on finishing school with the handshakes and all. They were all so happy. A nice bunch of friends. I wish them all the best in this game we call life.

So it’s a fairly decent ride from our house to Cortland and back. The ride up wasn’t bad. We played the picnic game which I had never played before. You know it’s one of those memory games. The first person says, “I’m going on a picnic and I’m going to bring apples”. The next person has to remember the apples and then add another thing to bring to the picnic that begins with the next letter of the alphabet. Like bananas. You keep going around in a circle and watch people struggle trying to remember everything in the correct order. If you don’t you are out. I did have a major brain freeze a couple of times but I got through it. Some of the things people brought to the picnic weren’t really fair though. Like a kangaroo for the letter K. Next time we’re going to have to make it a little harder. For the letter F, Jude picked a Friar. Not to cook with but the priestly guy in the robe kind of guy. What’s up with that? Who brings a Jesuit Friar to a picnic? Gotta change the rules next time. We can’t have all these crazy animals going to a picnic with us. (Kangaroo,penguin,owl walrus,giraffe,friar!, zebra, to name a few.) Okay I brought the owl. But I originally said I wanted to bring “odds and ends.” That got everyone in the car crazy for some reason and I had to choose another “O” thing. I really didn’t see anything wrong with that. It was four against one so I chose owl quick.

We also played the alphabet game. You know where you have to find every letter of the alphabet in the correct order on a sign as you are driving. I’m horrible at this game. I’m a slow reader. Everyone finished and I was still stuck on J. I was still trying to find a J for another 20 miles. It was a little pathetic.

Oh yeah, our very own state senator Chuck Schumer gave a speech at the commencement. He’s such a politician…….and we won’t get into politics here. He was okay. A couple of the other speakers said some really nice stuff. Inspiring stuff.

What really is amazing is how some people really aren’t paying attention to anything at all. The woman in front of us was bathing suit shopping on her cellphone. I don’t think this crowd seated in front of us looked up or clapped for a single thing the whole time we were there. Why did you come?

So the commencement was nice. A little long and boring but that’s to be expected. So we finished up around 9:15 which got us to thinking about getting home. Originally we were supposed to stay overnight in Binghamton which is about 45 minutes away. We decided to forego the overnight stay and just head home. Which in the end was a great idea.

The problem is we were driving with Jude and he always waxes philosophically.Which is great but it always involves something that really has no bearing on your life. He would pose a question and then we would have to respond. I’ll give you a small sample: Would you rather fight a Spartan child the age of twelve or fight a wolf? Would you rather fight a full grown silver back gorilla or a hippopotamus? (I guess that’s a good one for Sally H.) Here’s another: You’re in a gym and you have a pump action shotgun with eight shots. How many tigers do you think you could fight? There were quite a few in that vein until someone told him enough is enough. Then we got into the whole time travel thing. It’s a recurring theme that we discuss ad nauseam every once in a while. We won’t go into it here however. My question was this. If you had the chance would you rather go back in time and see the dinosaurs or would you rather go 250 years into the future and see what the world would be like? Hmmmm.

The Elven Queen Galadriel brings Frodo to her mirror and asks him if he would like to look in the mirror.

He asks, “What will I see?”

She replies: “Even the wisest cannot tell.

For the mirror shows a great many things.

Things that were,

things that are,

and some things that have not yet come to pass.”

 

Would you really want to look in the mirror?

 

Have a great week!

Jim

 

 

3 thoughts on “A College Graduation!…….If you had?????”

  1. We had two graduations last weekend (May 7) – older son and his wife from Regent University law school, younger son from Lynchburg College. Busy weekend – much commencement.

    Reply
  2. I pick fighting the gorilla, because I think that there is more chance of survival. This assuming that the hippo has actually seen you. Reasons: although hippos are vegetarians (they graze at night and spend their days in the water) they are also the only enemy of full grown crocodiles. When defending themselves or their babies from crocs, hippos use their huge jaws to bite crocs in half. Once they get riled there is no good defence against them. Gorillas can certainly be provoked, and body language that they see as aggressive can be enough, but they also respond to submissive posturing. If they attack they run past and hit with their fists first, only resorting to bites if the opponent does not back down. I think gorilla fists more survivable than hippo bites.

    Reply
    • Yeah I kind of agree with you on fighting the gorilla.I’ve seen a couple of shows on gorillas. Very interesting but they definitely just don’t attack. Hopefully we’ll never get into a scuffle with a gorilla.

      Hopefully Jude won’t be asking any more stupid questions either. Hmmm. Doubtful though.

      Thanks for responding though. Much appreciated.

      Take care,
      Jim

      Reply

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