{"id":1745,"date":"2016-05-11T19:27:55","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T02:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/?p=1745"},"modified":"2016-05-12T04:02:44","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T11:02:44","slug":"ghosts-of-graduation-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=1745","title":{"rendered":"Ghosts of Graduations Past"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x15012.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x15012.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x1501\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1746\" \/><\/a>I will see ghosts tomorrow night.<\/p>\n<p>Commencement is my favorite event of the school year. I love the pageantry\u2014the college band playing Pomp and Circumstance, the choir, the regalia (royal blue stripes on my gown\u2019s sleeves and a flaming red hood courtesy of Texas Tech).<\/p>\n<p>My favorite part is the processional, where faculty  line the aisle while graduates walk between us. I\u2019ll look for my students, whose expressions will say it all: relief, pride, hope.<\/p>\n<p>But tomorrow I expect to see more than the class of 2016. During my last commencement, I\u2019m looking for some  shadowy figures to show up. Call them the ghosts of graduations past.<\/p>\n<p>Brandon will be there\u2014Brandon who wrote papers about fish, who majored in Fisheries Management at Texas A&#038;M and who went on to work for the New Mexico Department of Fish and Game.<\/p>\n<p>Ditto for Adriel, who wrote papers about jets and now pilots one for the Air Force.<\/p>\n<p>And Lexi and Aletha, who now, like their former prof, teach English.<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019m sure my mind\u2019s eye will see dozens of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kCN_3dubhjI\" target=\"_blank\">Finishers<\/a>, those amazing students who made dreams come true for themselves and others\u2014and who made my last years at AC my best years at AC.<\/p>\n<p>So if you catch me smiling at empty spaces on Friday night, it\u2019s not senility (really); it\u2019s nostalgia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I will see ghosts tomorrow night. Commencement is my favorite event of the school year. I love the pageantry\u2014the college band playing Pomp and Circumstance, the choir, the regalia (royal blue stripes on my gown\u2019s sleeves and a flaming red hood courtesy of Texas Tech). My favorite part is the processional, where faculty line the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1745"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1749,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions\/1749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}