Graduation Party

Thanks to all our friends and family who were able to come help us celebrate.

Papa, Danny

Paul, Papa

Mom, Aunt Sandi, Elisa

Dr. & Mrs. Aristotle

John, watch out for your car!

Aaron, TJ, Joanna

Amelia, Emmie

Grown-ups are so tall.

Joanna, Elisa

Angela





We made him blow out the candles, but we did not sing.

There was much cheering when he was done.

Happy, relieved,....

and sunburned... how come you always have to be sunburned at graduations?

Emmie, Joanna, Jenny, Elisa

Emmie
Papa (regalia in the background - it is fun stuff)

Wren, David

GW Law Diploma Ceremony

The more personal ceremony! After lunch we trekked over to the Smith Center (inside - hurray) for the Law School Ceremony.

Ceil joined us.

The graduates walking in to the arena.

Jonathan was sitting in the fourth row.

The Law School graduated 700 JD, LLM, and JSD.

President Trachtenburg & Dean Lawrence lead the faculty

David also joined us in the noise-bleed seats for the ceremony. You had to be careful not to look too far over the seat in front of you for fear of falling into the lap of the nice man watching his daughter graduate.... or of falling to your disgrace on the walkway one story down.

President Trachtenburg had to hurry to the Med School ceremony, so he was brief, but very funny.

Dean Lawrence gave a very encouraging speech about how ethics is the backbone of the legal profession.

The Law School granted two professors the emeritas staus. I just missed it with the camera, but the fellow in the red who is about to sit did a little jig when his new status was conferred. I am sure he made an interesting prof.

The Class of 2007

A few very blury pictures of Jonathan walking down to get his diploma.

I am so glad the others were there to keep us amused. N is half way through the alphabet, but it felt like forever before his name was called.

Above, he is at the top of the stairs.

Below, he has just shaken hands with the Dean (the big blury white thing is the diploma).

Lunch and the Lincoln

Funny Story: We returned to the Law School for a picnic lunch (props to TJ for carrying the very awkward picnic hamper). While inside the Law School for certain amenities that are not found outside the Law School, my father happened upon a group of student were were looking at an early picture of the Washington Monument. At that time, it was a rather short edifice, with a small columned building at the base. There was a gaggle of graduates admiring the picture and one of them said to another, "...that is the Lincoln..." Papa overheard this discussion, and as a well educated American, knew that in 1858, as the picture says, the Lincoln was not built. The site for the Lincoln was not even chosen until 1901. He began explaining this to the newly graduated Juris Doctorates gathered around. As he expounded on the history of the different monuments a small crowd gathered to listen.
The rest of our party was rather hungry for our lunch, and since he had not returned to our table TJ was dispatched to find and retrieve him. Ever the resourceful and urbane fellow, TJ decided to respectfully and quietly mingle into the crowd and then announce in a voice quiet yet important, as if he had grown up in the City, "Professor, lunch is laid out, and you have a busy schedule today. I need to move you to the picnic so that we can get to the ceremony on time." At that Papa and TJ moved through the astonished crowd to the lunch. One graduate was heard to explain to his father that he thought the "Professor" taught Torts or something like that.

The lunch was quite good.

See below for a miniature of the Washington print in question.

GW Commencement 2007

GW Commencement 2007 - an amazing experience. We had to be at the law school at 0900. They gave us a parking pass for the parking garage, which made life so sweet.

Helping Jonathan arrange his hood. Academic regalia is fun. The hood is purple on the outside for his discipline, Law, and royal blue with a gold chevron on the inside for the school. He also had a mortar board with a purple tassel. Since he has already finished his undergrad his tassel starts on the left.


The University did an excellent job taking everyone from campus to the ceremony cite and back. Besides, who would turn down a nice bus ride to sit in city traffic? Silly!!

Above are the serious pre-graduation faces, and below are the happy faces.

Check out the hats! It was supposed to be wretchedly hot during the day, so we wore hats. Also, we are very fashionable, so we wore hats. Wearing of hats is always a good idea.

This is as close as we got to the graduates. When you graduate 4,000 students the ceremony gets a little impersonal.

See the GW mace? It is metal and could actually hurt someone, which is what the boys tell me a mace is supposed to do. You can see George's head silhouette the mace.

President Trachtenberg was very diverting. He had been presiding for a long time, 15 years I believe. He had the best stories and was brief. Like a good lawyer. This was his last time at graduation as president of the University. After this year he will retire and just teach.

After the ceremony we tried to find our graduate in the mêlée... but he found us, so it all ended well. There were 4,000 graduates, and each graduate had six tickets, so that meant about 24,000 spectators. That is a lot of chairs on the Mall. Look in the background of the following pictures to see what I mean.

Nice raiment.



Don't you want him on your side?

I do!

Congratulations Jonathan!! We are so proud of you!