Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Memorial Day weekend

Hope everyone... all two of you.... had a great Memorial Day weekend! I had lots of things going on this weekend.

Saturday, my 17yr old, graduated from private School up in Sac. I can't tell you how proud I am of him... when his mother started dating a guy that graduated from the same school and she wanted our son to go there, I wasn't all that excited about him going there. He had to take entrance exams and he passed them so I couldn't say no even though the area in which he was raised had all new public schools and were considered some of the best in California

Well, fast forward 4 years... he's become quite the young man. Responsible, intelligent and he's been accepted to college in Spokane Washington. While at his graduation, the administrator that was announcing the grads, asked them all kind of questions and told them to stand if they had a certain dot on their program, each time a number of kids would stand up and then sit down again. They did this a number of times and then, he asked "anyone going to college in the fall to please stand up" and ALL of them stood, all 267 young men. Quite an accomplishment. 267 out of 267 kids graduating, accepted to college... I guess there are advantages to private school. They teach them to EXCEL, not just get by. The teach them to HELP THE COMMUNITY, not just use it... Each young man had to do over 100 hours of community service and some did over 800 hours.. amazing was an understatement. 4.78 Grade point averages... pretty unbelievable!

On Monday, I left on the bike to attend a Memorial Ceremony. Our Motorcycle group of 200 led by Highway Patrol and sheriff's, led a procession to the Memorial Auditorium. We escorted the parents of two soldiers from the area that was killed in Iraq last year. It was an amazing turn out. thousands of people came to remember those that had given their lives in defending our nation and our rights to live free... or at least to live better than most!

The fallen soldiers parents are a part of our group and with great pride we led them to the ceremony. There was a granite monument dedicated to those that have lost their lives in the war. When the gentleman that put together the event started talking, he broke out in tears... seeing an 80 yr. old Italian, talking about two 20 yr old young men that died, break down in tears.. was more than most could handle and the tears flowed... what an experience... it really brings home what 5056 other families must be going through... it also makes me glad that my own son's didn't volunteer to fight. I'm glad there are others out there that are willing to put their lives on the line to defend our honor... God bless them!

1 comment:

said...

Beautiful post.

You're a proud daddy! :)

And yes, a Memorial Day event would have me in a mess of tears too!

Thank you for your comment today. You gave me something to think about.