Prize Night

Friday night was Prize Night at Hogwarts.  (I am writing this Saturday morning, and Son 1 will graduate in a few hours.)  Wife and I drove to town together yesterday, checked into (different) hotels, then stopped by my parents’ house and we all four drove to campus.

In the end, the ceremony was a lot of fun.  At any rate I liked it because I’m a Hogwarts alumnus myself and it brought back fond memories.  Also, we had been notified discreetly by the school that we should show up because Son 1 would be winning a prize.  In four years at Hogwarts he has never been singled out for anything, although he is known all over campus and everybody likes him.  But as the ceremony wore on, there was no mention of him.  They handed out the language prizes, the mathematics prizes, the science prizes, the history prizes, the English prizes, the prizes for highest grades in each of the four classes and then in the school as a whole, the awards for leadership and community service … nothing.  And then the very last prize of the evening was called: the prize for school spirit, selected (unlike all the others) by a vote of all the students … to Son 1.  He grinned a little sheepishly as he walked up on stage to accept a huge engraved cup.  His friends in the audience were chanting “S-O-N-1!  S-O-N-1!  S-O-N-1!”  Wife and I (and Father) all took pictures of him with his cup, before he gave it back to be stored in a glass case with the other school awards.  And we all went out to dinner.

That’s one summary of the evening.  There are other lenses to see it through.  I had forgotten how incessantly Wife natters.  On the three hour drive into town she stopped only when it became clear that I wasn’t going to reply to anything except occasionally in monosyllables; and then she put her seat back and closed her eyes.  Once she was with my parents, however, nothing stopped her but the actual ceremony itself.  The rest of the time was a nonstop commentary: “Well I don’t think he’s going to get one of the academic prizes because his grades aren’t that good, you know it’s not that he’s not smart but he tells me he just doesn’t want to work that hard, he’s always been able to do better in school than he really does but he just won’t apply himself, I know he loves history but he only got a 3 on the AP History exam, and of course he’s never been very good at math, his foreign language skills are OK but nothing to write home about, he loves baseball but he’s never taken up any other sports besides that and you know he’s never been selected MVP, of course he’s never had any interest in student government, maybe he’s just going to get some kind of award for being a good kid which of course he is and of course I love him dearly but he’s never earned any kind of prize for any actual achievement ….”  Clearly her analysis of what prize he might get wasn’t exactly wrong, but dear God it was wearying and depressing to have to listen to it.  Why does she have to run down her own children so much?

Then there was my father, who kept trying to turn the conversation to me, and to compare Son 1’s prize to the prizes I got when I was that age.  I was the kid who kept taking all the prizes for best grades in my class and the school.  But really, all those prizes and a couple of bucks will get me a cup of coffee, that’s about it.  Besides which, I’m not the one graduating this weekend: Son 1 is.  The weekend should be all about him.  I’m here as a proud dad and as a chauffeur.

The less time I have to spend with either of those two, the happier I am.  On the other hand, I suppose I really ought to let it go, and not let them get to me.  The weekend should be all about Son 1.

I am proud of him.