Hey, you.

Yes, it’s graduation time here. Not for me, no, but for a few thousand students. For some odd reason their family and friends come to see them walk across the stage, to hear the band play and the speeches made.

How can I tell, other than the crackle of excitement in the air?

1. Motel 6 changed their sign yesterday from “$32.99 / person” to “$74.99 / person.” The other hotels that don’t have huge neon signs outside also doubled their rates. But just for this weekend, they’ll be back to normal by Monday. They also do this for home football games, (our team draws bigger crowds than the Dallas Cowboys, not that it’s hard or anything) it’s just free enterprise at work.
2. The roads are clogged with even more cars than usual, driven by folks reading maps printed from the internet trying to find their child’s apartment or their motel or the arena or perhaps the restaurant where everyone is meeting. Often all of the above.
3. Forget going out to eat. Even McDonalds is too crowded. Okay, maybe not too crowded, but you get the idea.
4. I happened across a woman outside just now trying to find the arena where graduations happen (there are three ceremonies, everyone won’t fit at the same time, so they started this morning and there’s an afternoon and evening ceremony, too).
   Anyway, I helped her out (we’re a couple miles away, maybe, since you can’t drive in a straight line) and then asked her who was graduating. Expecting perhaps a child or nephew. No, she’s a teacher at a school for the blind and one of her former students came here to get his graduate degree and is walking today. That just seems cool.