I find myself sitting on metal bleachers facing the Sun on a warm June morning in Jerome, Idaho. There are ominous thunderclouds all around, and yet I know I'm getting sunburned despite the SPF 45 I smeared on. The students in their caps and gowns walk across the field to the awaiting chairs. "Pomp and Circumstance" is playing over the loudspeaker, relatives and friends are applauding wildly, fields are being irrigated in the background, and I feel like I'm in a made-for-TV movie. I hear the sound of a plane, and due to the surrealism of the surroundings, I think "is it a terrorist threat?" - in the made-for-TV movie it would be. Then a more realistic thought crosses my mind - "Are we going to get cropdusted?" And in fact, there appears a cropduster in the distance, but it sticks to its fields. Several horrible speeches go by (including valedictorians who mispronounced common words) and as the distribution of diplomas approaches the Ws, where my niece patiently waits, the sky opens, lightning and thunder crashes, and we all scurry to the car as soon as the ceremony is over. And all I can think is, "We gotta go through this again in 3 days."

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