Graduation Time: Check another one off the list

Graduation Time: Check another one off the list

In just a little more than three weeks’ time (less by the time this sees print), my middle child, my baby boy, will be graduating from high school. He’ll actually be graduating from Marion High School, which I mention, because my oldest boy graduated from West Memphis High School.

There used to be a lot of us Hardins running around Marion, but some have passed on and others have scattered, so I’m glad to see another one make the walk up the steps to the stage and pick up his diploma.

He turned 18 back in February, and my oldest boy turned 20 a few days later, making me the father of two grown men. Now, to look at me, you’d obviously never think I was old enough for that to be true (I kid, but that really is true of my wife!). I’ve got the (almost) 10-year-old little girl still running around, so the nest isn’t going to be empty by any means.

So, while my son is getting ready for the next chapter of his life, I can stop and take a little look back. He’s grown from a little whitehaired, mop-topped bigeyed “pooh-bear” to a tall (well, taller than me), bearded, tattooed (well, one tattoo) man. He looks a little gruff (by design, I assure you) but he’s still one of the biggest-hearted people I know. It’s funny, I tried to raise him and his brother with the same sort of guidance and life lessons and such, but they took what their mother and I gave them and made their own ways. The oldest is all about politics and studying and being on the cutting edge of this-and-that, while he’s easy-going and artsy and quite whatever-ish — maybe a little too whateverish sometimes, but he just wants to be happy and make everyone else around him happy. He’s deceptively witty and slow to anger and has generally been problemfree in his rearing (outside of some Algebra-related catastrophes).

Well, OK, he’s got some quirks. They were there from the beginning, such as freaking out if the lid to his sippy-cup was a different color than the cup itself, and he’s a very, very, very picky eater — His idea of a vegetable is macaroni & cheese. He doesn’t let us roll the windows down in the car if the radio is on, because he “doesn’t want anyone to think we’re gangsters.” His favorite time to let us know about some very important thing that is happening is a few hours before it starts. And… well, you know, making out this list makes me realize how little trouble he’s actually been.

Many of you have a child, or grandchild or cousin or niece or nephew (I have a nephew!), getting ready to graduate, too. Between all of our area schools, Crittenden County will graduate about 800 or so from high school this May.

That’s 800 young men an women going out into the work force or off to college, getting married, raising children of their own. Many of them, like many of those before them, will leave town and never look back.

Some, though, will stay here, be a part of this community, continue the circle that some families have kept going here for generations.

I’m not sure exactly where my son will end up (and I’m not sure he does either), just so long as he’s as happy as he’s made us, but I hope he remembers we’re here for him whenever he needs us, and he can always come home.

Ralph Hardin is the Editor of the Evening Times, born and raised in Marion.

“Marion State of Mind” By Ralph Hardin