The next installment of graduation day chronicles the glorious moment when a precious child walks across a massive stage to receive her degree in English Literature with her minor in business and you miss it.
The Kohl Center is a massive venue that hosts a huge amount of Badger sporting and concert events.
We arrived on time but not early enough to score a main floor seat. So we scrambled upstairs to look for a seat where it was not mandatory for you to have brought your telescope.
We scoured the arena and Terry found a section of seats, empty with a decent view.
They were season ticket holder seats.
Of course we had to scale a fence to get to them but it was worth it. We had paid 5 million dollars for this education we deserved a decent view.
Apparently, we were not the only ones with this thought because numbers of families and well wishers began to hop the fence and settle in for the ceremony.
A very shy young Kohl Center employee was sent to our section to have us removed. "You can't sit here, these seats are owned by season ticket holders". One family a few rows above us argued that they were not budging, they had waited a long time for their kid to graduate and they weren't going to miss their moment wandering around a giant stadium looking for another seat. The terrified young lady digressed, she knew it was a lost cause as the jeers and hot pretzel pelting commenced.
We then used our modern technology to find out where JieJie was seated. We were all texting back and forth, trying to get her exact locale so we could cheer as she walked the long walk to her degree.
She kept telling us she was " in front of the band, middle section third row back".
In the sea of caps and gowns everyone looked the same. Sometimes we could tell if they were boys or girls.
We progressed through the ceremony, listened to speeches and then the procession began.
We kept waving at who we thought was JieJie and she kept waving at who she thought was her family.
Mary and I carefully counted down as the rows would rise and take their place in line. The students name would be called and their beautiful young hopeful face would appear on the trinitron.
We were all anxiously waiting, cameras poised, watching JieJie's line rise to get in the exodus to the stage.
And then all of the sudden,"Paulina Schemanski" was called out. We all quickly turned our heads to the stage and she was already more than half way off of it.
JieJie was at least three sections earlier than we thought. We were waving and cooing at some girl named Julianne Walters.
I thought Jie Jie's father was going to have a heart attack."Is it over?" "Did I miss it?"" I spent 5 million dollars on college and I missed it?"
Yep it was done, she was all graduated and we missed the golden moment,we did see Julianne Walters graduate though and we were very proud.
Oh my! It seems that commencement is full of iffy moments... I received a phone call from Kate while she was waiting w/ the other graduates to proceed to their seats. "I think I'm going to be sick, Mom."... and then nothing. And then voices (not Kate's) saying, "are you okay? did you eat today? what's your name?" I was in a panic b/c no one was talking to me but I could hear everything until her phone disconnected. Fortunately, after everyone was finally seated... my Kate came out. Via text she let me know she had passed out, some nice young men caught her and that she was okay. (A little embarrassed, of course!) The good thing was that I didn't have to guess where she was seated as she had made quite a grand entrance!! Just so you know, prior to her wedding, I made her do shots!
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