Graduation day for Isaac

Son Isaac graduated from Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana yesterday. It was a cold and breezy day, but the rains held off and it wasn't too bad overall. We started the day off with the Baccalaureate service at 10 am in Reardon Auditorioum. It lasted a little over an hour. The President spoke, the Choir sang (and was pretty awesome), Dr. David Sebastian (Dean of the School of Theology) gave the sermon, and we sang a couple of songs accompanied by pipe organ. This is a picture of Andrew, Isaac, and Caleb afterward.

Drew Carrie brought my parents down for lunch after Baccalaureate (mom and dad were here from Friday night until Sunday after lunch). We went to Arts for pizza, then hung out at the Milton House (Isaac, Graham & Caleb's) and took some pictures. Caleb's mom took this nice pic of our family, in the blue room. We were all a bit wind-blown, but we survived.

The only real glitch of the day was when we arrived at Isaac's and noticed that the license plate was missing from his truck. Someone just took the sucker off - screws and all - either right in front of his house, or possibly the night before when he was in Muncie. Anyway, when he left to get ready for graduation, Jane and I went to the police station to report it stolen. Although we first went to the jail. We walked in and looked like fish out of water, so some kind folks asked us which cell block we were visiting. We said we didn't know, we just needed to report a license plate as stolen. So they directed us to the city Police Station a couple of blocks over. They seemed to know the inner workings of the police/jail situation quite well. So we went to the police station. There was a phone inside the door, which I dialed and talked to a woman on, and reported our crime. She said someone would be right out, and shortly two uniformed policemen came and escorted us inside. The young one was trying to be a hard guy and all, but the other one realized we had no idea what we were doing, and he was pretty nice. They gave us a report number and told us to keep it with the vehicle. Otherwise we would just need to go to the BMV when it opened and get a new plate.

What a time to steal the license plate too, as Isaac needed the truck to move out of his house the next day, and was planning a trip to Fort Wayne as well. The cops said if we had an old license plate we might want to just put that on until we could get a legitimate one.

So, after all that excitement, we headed to the Kardatzke Wellness Center for the 3 pm commencement exercise. Although they should tell you that it actually starts at 2:40. Drew Carrie were walking around and weren't allowed into their seats because they started walking the graduates in at 20 til. There were just under 600 graduates total, and I think there were over 200 that were like Isaac - he still has one class (for 1 credit hour) to take this summer before he is officially graduated. That's why he didn't get his cords for having a 3.9 gpa (out of 4). The speaker was William G. Enright, who was also receiving his Doctorate in Humane Letters today. He is director of the Lilly Endowment, Inc.

Our seats were pretty far back, and there were a LOT of people there. I believe it took about 2 hours for them to call everyone's name, and then for the place to clear out. After the graduates left, we headed back out into the cold for post-graduation pictures and hanging out. Here is a pic of Isaac with some of his good friends (Ben, Chris, Andrew, Ian, Graham, Caleb, and some others that I don't know very well). My dad was getting cold so he and my mom headed for the car while we hung around awhile. Finally we decided we had better go, and Drew Carrie stayed with Isaac and his friends. As Jane and I were walking to the car we saw my mom and dad still wandering around the streets looking for our car. They never had found it and had just been walking around the whole time. Geesh.

Anyway, after we left we took my mom and dad on a tour of the Exodus House. They had never been there before. They were glad to see it, and my mom had all sorts of ideas for ways they could fix it up. If they only had some money to do some of those things. At any rate, I think they were quite impressed with it.

After that we headed back to Isaac's house where he opened presents. We gave him a djembe drum and some cash. We also got some pictures of he and his housemates. Though they are all moving out today, they have had a nice year together. Caleb (left), Isaac (center), and Graham (right) all three graduated Summa Cum Laude (a 3.9 gpa or higher), and Graham was actually one of only two students to receive a perfect 4.0. Pretty good for three country boys. They will all three be staying in Anderson, and as yet none of them will be making much in the way of money. I suspect some good things will be coming their way soon though. Caleb was a Spanish major, Isaac majored in Bible & Religion and minored in Peace & Conflict Transformation as well as Christian Ethics, and Graham majored in Business.

We ended up leaving around 7 pm so they could do the "graduate thing," and Drew Carrie went and got Lady and we hung out at our house with my parents. All in all it was a very nice day. Proud mama and papa. Though I still can't believe both our kids are now out of college.