graduation day

On Saturday, Ben and I attended the high school graduation. We got there at 6 a.m., and the kids started arriving at 6:30, having been told to be there by 7. It was the first time any of my students have been early since I've known them. I was in charge of the "VIP tent," where such dignitaries as Board of Education members, our county councilwoman, and the drug court judge who will soon be sentencing some of the graduates were feted with banana bread and fried rice. I dragged Ben along as my muscle, forcing him to endure a seven-hour day of carting coolers to and fro, chasing teachers down in an attempt to give them their leis, and being embarrassed by me during the ceremony as I shielded his bald spot with my program.

The keynote speaker, a delightful woman who was the perky head cheerleader when I was a freshman and is now a teacher and radio deejay, gave a funny and lively speech full of classic pidgin phrases, mildly insulting shout-outs to the principal ("When I heard he was the principal, I thought, did they do a background check on this guy?"), and jokes that would be racist were we not in Hawaii ("You Filipinos out there know what I mean.....[silence]......ho, where all da Filipinos? Had plenny when I was in skoo."). This particular joke had to do with describing the location of one's "na'au," some kind of Hawaiian center of power, which is located in the gut, which is, coincidentally, Filipinos' favorite pig part to eat! HA!

Several times throughout the speech, she paused to "break it down," cuing Jawaiian music and dancing around the stage (at one point imitating the principal's Elaine Benis-like dance style), which caused the seniors to cheer and leap from the bleachers to skank in their shiny green robes. Amazingly, they sat down and resumed listening to her when the music stopped.

On the last "breakdown," she delivered her final, inspiring words over the even more inspiring lyrics, "Pakalolo, hula girls, and getting laid....."

Word.