Time Passages

I've always loved the Al Stewart song, with it's concluding line "Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight." It evokes images of him at a darkened British Rail station, at the end of a long day (symbolizing his life) awaiting a return to the familiar.

Yesterday D1 called me, to report she was about to enter her final college class. She knows how much I love to mark the milestones in life, and I appreciated her call so much.

Where have those four years gone? I dropped her off at Beatty Towers just yesterday, it seems, as she laughed with her new roommates, and looked forward with so much anticipation, to the coming experience. She's stayed close friends with one of those girls, Chelsea, and the two of them will graduate in 2 weekends.

Chelsea's headed off to NYU for graduate school, while D1 is, thankfully, coming home to FIU graduate studies. I know Chelsea's folks will be in Gainesville next week, beaming with pride (she's the first in her immigrant family to get a university degree) and wondering how the years have flown so fast.

D2 has her senior prom this weekend, another milestone in the passage of time. I volunteered to host the "pre prom party," an event that's sprung up over the last few years. This is D2's THIRD prom, as she was asked to go by friends the past two years, and each of the times Wifey and I were impressed at how lovely these pre prom get togethers were.

D2 informed me that, instead of a limo, her group had hired a 38 passenger party bus! So, somehow the pre prom party has turned into quite the event. We're expecting 50-60 folks, for sandwiches and wings, and drinks for the parents.

My friend Mike has even concocted a special blended cocktail, called the "Blue Panther" (the high school mascot), and I have to go buy the ingredients before Saturday. His daighter Amanda, who is D2's lifelong friend, is headed to USC Film School, in hopes of becoming a movie director.

I know Mike and I will drink our share of his Blue Panthers Saturday evening, and choke back some wistful tears as the party bus drives away into the evening.