Alarming Female

So yesterday I attended my godson’s graduation from Murray High School. My son and I sat halfway up the oval at the far end in what was basically a gymnasium made over for a graduation of 400 or so high school seniors. Good thing I had my knitting; it was destined to be a long afternoon.

The only thing behind us was a walkway and side door which soon produced four annoying police officers who talked and joked throughout the ceremony (as well as one who sang along with the musical selections).

A little way into the program my son nudged me and said, “do you know who is behind us?”

“You mean the police?” I asked.

“With the police—David Archuleta,” he said.

I didn’t need to turn around to look, because, one, I wouldn’t recognize David Archuleta anyway, and two, I could tell by all the people sitting below me who were turning their backs on the graduation ceremony and grinning goofily in my direction that my son was right. And then they started taking pictures. I hate people.

If only I’d had a little Tibetan flag and sign reading FREE TIBET, I could have made a political statement in all those photos. James contemplated throwing gang signs just to spice things up, which made us both giggle. Our sniggers contrasted sharply with the attitudes of the little girls sitting in front of us; they were nearly in tears with their longing and awe.

It started getting ridiculous, though, with all the cameras pointed toward him, and, therefore, toward me, and so finally I turned around and announced to the darling little moppet, “if I’m on the front page of the paper tomorrow, it’s your fault.” Not the wittiest comment I’ve ever made, but it got his attention. He squatted down to talk to us and asked us who we were here to see. I told him, and he then asked my godson’s name, and when I told him that, he replied, oddly, “I thought so—you two sort of match his style.” He then gestured at my son’s shoulder length hair in explanation—a trait the two boys shared until my godson cut his off to donate to Locks of Love. Then he said, of my godson, “he’s a genius! I wish he’d tutor me.”

I mentioned that his presence was creating quite a stir among the nearby crowd, and he said, with regret, “this is supposed to be about them.” The “them” being the graduates; among them his older sister, Claudia.

I need to watch his performances, now, so I know what all the fuss is about. All I know of David Archuleta is that he’s a smiling, quiet, kind boy who thinks my godson is a genius and who has Utah (and apparently a good part of the television viewing world) eating out of the palm of his hand.

By the way, my godson earned a 35 on the ACT and has a GPA approaching 4.0 with a full load of AP courses and an eye on a university education in science. I told him he should get a t-shirt printed with “David Archuleta thinks I’m a genius.” Heh.