Hillmomba Was Well-Represented

We spent Saturday and Sunday in Columbia, watching the #1 son receive his special award. No, it was NOT a leg lamp in a crate marked FRA-JEEEE-LAY. Actually, we spent Saturday and Sunday DRIVING to and from Columbia. Mizzou. Not the South American country. That would be Colombia. And don't mention a necktie if you go there. Don't even Google that. My brother-in-law the ex-mayor filled me in on that one. Not that he's ever been to Colombia, or given such a necktie.

So, we went to see #1 named one of the top one hundred high school students in the state of Missouri. The program was classy, even though the dinner was nothing to write home about, and the speechifying guys were enablers of big game hunters trying to catch the elusive ZZZZZZs.

Our table, already marked with place cards bearing our names, was three steps from the podium. That meant that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, who likes to be at the back of every venue, was on display like a prize pig at the state fair. Everybody bored with the speechifying guys needed only to avert their gaze one degree to the right to observe Mrs. HM goonin' right back at them. Goonin'. That's what kids in Hillmomba used to call "staring" at somebody. Goonin'.

There was no way I was turning my head ninety degrees to watch an old man talk. Not with the vast array of diverse recipients to peruse. Yes. Kids look like their parents. I had no trouble discerning the parental units from the high school principals with each honoree.

The tables were set when we arrived. A plate of salad, desserts all around, water, and iced tea. Here's the catch. An old guy talked. Then another old guy talked. I noticed a couple of folks eating their salad. Then the old guy talking at the time said, "And in a few minutes we'll let you get to your lunch." It was not dinner and a show. It was some show. Dinner. Then more show. We were supposed to be sitting there like big patient dogs, holding biscuits on our cold wet dog noses, waiting until the signal to begin eating. Most of us earned an "Atta boy!"

Still, the event was well-organized and stately. Kids were dressed in suits, not saggy pants or flip-flops, and I only saw one kid with a cell phone during the speeches. The see-through trophy-award thingy was cool. The #1 son was reunited with some Missouri Boys State alumni, and a competitor from a neighboring district. Our principal said #1 is only the third recipient from Newmentia in his twenty-nine years of principaling.

I am very proud of my upper-echelon egghead.