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Graduation season has matriculated for yours portly. Indeed, college graduations have already been rolling on for a few weeks now, with a flurry of graduation photos and heartfelt Facebook posts accompanying the accomplishments of young people across the land. My school observed a graduation ceremony for our eighth graders last night, continuing the long-standing tradition of watering down “graduation” to apply to any milestone. Never mind kindergarten graduation ceremonies; pretty soon we’ll be having graduation ceremonies for when youngsters leave the house to head to school for the first time.
Regardless, it is a season of joy and celebration, and there is something to be said for all of that pomp and circumstance (and the constant playing of Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance No. 1,” which is echoing across the land even as I write, I’d wager). Nowadays graduations are largely an opportunity for mothers to take thousands of pictures of their children (which likely explains the explosion of “graduations” referenced earlier), but they still hold certain symbolic and cultural importance.
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