Graduation Day 2007
By Don Hobbs

This weekend was spent celebrating the graduation of my stepson, Taylor Jamieson, from Texas Tech University by driving to Lubbock, Texas. My wife, Joyce, and I were joined by my son, James, and his girlfriend, and my wife's ex-husband, Rob. Rob is a psychiatrist who still harbors anger issues over their divorce. That divorce took place nearly 15 years ago. He likes me but will not speak to Joyce.  It was a twisted Brady Bunch moment with Hitchcockian flair . At least no one was murdered.

Lubbock is a town of 200,000 people about 350 miles from Dallas. The last time I was in Lubbock was when I was leading a group of crazy Sherlockians on The Great Whimsical Sherlockian Tour of Oklahoma and Texas. We were in Lubbock on the third day of the tour and this is the same day that others have referred to as the Baton Death March or worse.  Lubbock is the home of Buddy Holly and the Buddy Holly Museum. Joyce and I visited there and also went to the Wind Energy Museum. We then visited one of my favorite vineyards in Texas - Llano Estacada. We toured the vineyard and tasted several of their varieties.

We left Friday morning and headed out into such a fog, we thought it could have been London. It wasn't a pea-souper kind of fog because if you looked up into the sky, there were plenty of patches of blue. The fog was just at ground level. In many places this might not have been much of an issue but in the flatness of west Texas the fog seemed to go on forever. It finally burned off just before we got to Lubbock some 5 hours later. We met Taylor and two of his roommates for dinner. It is a wonderful feeling to see a child mature into a young adult.

My son, James, and Joyce's son, Taylor, are two days apart in age. We call them our twins but raise a lot of eyebrows when we tell people they are two days apart. They are closer than most true twins. They are the perfect compliment and contrast to each other. My son failed out of college his first year and joined the Texas National Guard. He spent a year in Iraq and for the past nine months has been guarding the Texas border with Mexico. Recently, he received his orders for a second tour of Iraq. James leaves on Monday and had told Taylor he would not be able to attend graduation. Taylor was speechless when he walked up and saw James. He said it was the best graduation present ever.

The weird Brady Bunch experience had a lovely dinner and after enough wine and champagne things loosened up to a tolerable level between the exes (I still doubt Rob spoke a direct word to Joyce even though she tried several times). Joyce and I had a leisurely drive home only dampened by me getting a speeding ticket less than an hour from home. It was a weekend where Sherlock Holmes took the backseat but this is fine. The weekend belonged, and rightly so, to the newest member of the working class - Taylor Jamieson. Congratulations!!

Happy Collecting!!