The Golden Boy

This morning, I was awakened by an inspiring version of “The Star Spangled Banner” sung by Caleb at 7:30 in the morning. It was a little startling, but I did find myself thinking good thoughts about America all day long.

On a different topic entirely, last night, John received his G.O.L.D. award, which you may remember stands for Graduate of the Last Decade, and NOT Good Old Lager Drinkers. There was a dinner at our college alma mater, RWC, which stands for Roberts Wesleyan College and NOT Radioactive Waste Campaign (I could go on like this all day…) in our old dining hall on campus. It was a full room: other awards were presented and there were speeches from those celebrating various milestone reunions. The guy from 1959 should totally have his own reality t.v. show. It could be like an edgier version of Andy Griffith with butt grabbing and another mildly inappropriate jokes.

The best part about the whole evening was having our family all together to celebrate the wonder that is John. John’s brother Scotty Karate and his wife drove in from Philly, his little sister Mary came up from Lancaster, and his parents drove from the not-so-far-away corner of Lockport, NY. My parents and stepmother also came, and his fave professor from college came, accompanied by his most awesome wife , which meant a lot to John.

The second best part of the evening was this layered, lemony cake that had sufficient icing to make me very happy.

John’s friend and colleague Kelly introduced John and spoke of his feats during and since college (should I list them all? Would that be obnoxious? Well… it’s my freakin’ blog, I guess I can if I want.) Actually, his feats are kind of obnoxious. (College senate, Senior class president, RA (which stands for resident advisor and not Random A-h***), magna cum laude grad in college and law school, editor-and-chief of the Buffalo Law Review, attorney for THE FIRM, pro-bono award recipient, political town leader, adjunct professor, father of four, husband of the best trophy wife a guy could ever have.) The last one is not so obnoxious.

What Kelly didn’t mention, and what John didn’t tell her, is my favorite of John’s most recent accomplishments. A picture of John pretending to jump out of THE FIRM’s legal library window graces the cover of THE FIRM’s recent brochure. Because that is often what one feels like doing when one is a lawyer. I believe most of our lawyer friends can attest to this fact. (Picture forthcoming: I have to find it).

My favorite comment of the evening came from my mother-in-law, who told John: “I didn’t even know half of those things!” We were shocked that she didn’t know we had four children, but this is what happens when you yourself have to keep track of five kids, so we forgave her.

My second favorite comment came his fave professor, who incorrectly guessed what year John had graduated. (This in itself is funny since he only had to subtract ten years, but I suppose math is not a strongpoint of humanities professors.) John told him the correct year, and the prof said, “You’re lucky I remember you at all!” I think these humbling statements are good for John.

A woman approached me after the dinner and said, “Behind every great man is a…” This is when I butted in and said, “an even better woman.” Ha ha! I’m also a big fan of that joke about Adam, you know, the first man created by God. God created man, stepped back and took a good look and thought to himself, I can do sooo much better. Thousands, maybe millions (yeah… I went there) of years later, Holly was born.

John now has a huge plaque that he is going to hang in his office at THE FIRM so that the next time his boss berates him for something or other he can point to it and say, while sniveling a bit, “Some people out there actually appreciate what I do!”

John gave a speech about the importance of having Christian liberal arts colleges, and he didn’t say um too many times, which is a problem of his. What makes a Christian liberal arts college different than other Christian colleges? Well, at Roberts, we were allowed to walk with members of the opposite sex on the sidewalks, to form our own opinions about Christianity, and could wear t-shirts that made political and social statements. At the same time, we had chapel requirements, a faith-based education, and a selection of quality liberal arts programs to choose from.

Caleb was the only child to accompany us, and he behaved beautifully. He was distracted by a loose tooth and spent the evening taking bite after bite of a rather large apple in hopes of painlessly extracting it.

I am sorry to say that I must rescind my application as next year’s G.O.L.D recipient, largely because I don’t think I could get my family to sit through all of those speeches for a second year in a row. To those in charge of selection, I know this comes as a great disappointment, but I must stand by my decision. I guess I’ll just have to be satisfied living with the golden boy, who is at the Bills game right now but will be home in a bit. I hope in time to give the boys a bath, because golden boys do these menial chores better than trophy wives do. Just a little information for all you trophy wives out there…

John and his trophy wife.

From bottom left, going clockwise: Scotty Karate, Michelle the belle, Richie Retardo, Mama II, Pa, Sigrid, Mary without Carl (sniff sniff), and Lisa from New Jersey. I would have had a picture of table #2, but my better camera was recently stolen, along with my memory card, and I ran out of memory on my stupid old camera. I await the pics from the Dad, who has a kick-butt camera.