Homecoming came in a hurry

Once again I feel like I’m in some kind of time warp.

Granddaughter Emma is going to her homecoming dance this weekend. How can that be? Just yesterday I was reading a story to her while she colored in a coloring book. 

Just yesterday she and any random child in the area were getting flour all over the floor as she and her brothers, cousins and assorted children I hadn’t seen before made bread. It was just yesterday that she was a toddler who introduced me to My Little Pony. It was just yesterday that she was a baby. And now she is a beautiful teen going to her homecoming dance.

I never went to a homecoming dance. As a matter of fact, I have been to exactly one dance in my life. We went to a science fair at school. After walking through the exhibits we decided that the science fair was boring. 

We heard music down the hallway and went to check it out. It was a school dance. Nobody had told us not to go and there was no admission so we went in. There were three of us — me, Chris and Donnie. For the life of me I can’t remember Donnie’s last name. 

Anyway, the three of us went in and we had a great time. That is until somebody came in and said they were looking for us. We went back out to the hallway but we weren’t fast enough to blend into the crowd. We got in a whole bunch of trouble.  

That was the one and only school dance I ever attended. Less than a month later, Chris yelled at one of our bus drivers and was shipped away. In all fairness, that bus driver hated us. Depending on the day, he had us all sit at the back of the bus. Then in a week or so he made us all sit in the front of the bus. Then he had the boys sit on one side and the girls on the other. In spite of us doing whatever he told us to, he ended up telling the school that he refused to pick us up. The new bus driver didn’t seem to have any problems with us and we finished out the year with no more drama.

I never did figure out why that driver disliked us so much. None of us acted up on the bus. We sat wherever he told us to. We talked amongst ourselves. Nobody was out of line, nobody threw things, nobody yelled or did anything else that would justify his anger at us. Well, nobody but Chris. 

I haven’t thought of that dance for years. In spite of being grounded for life it was worth it. For that hour or so we were ordinary kids enjoying ourselves without a care in the world.

I sincerely hope that Emma’s memories of her upcoming dance will be positive. She’s the kind of girl who seems to shake off disappointment and who focuses on the good. I am looking forward to hearing about her experience.

I hope that Emma will never be subjected to a disgruntled bus driver. However, I am fairly certain that she will meet her share of cranky people who hate everybody, especially since she has expressed interest in becoming a game warden. 

In other news, I just got this caption to a photo of  Emma’s little brother, Jacob: “Sent my son to get a bag of ice, totally forgot he had his machete strapped to his belt. Redneck! “

I’m not sure where they were going but it was somewhere that didn’t have refrigeration. 

By this time next week Emma’s dance will be nothing but a memory, and if anyone gives her any trouble Jacob is ready to defend her with his machete.