Reading elise's post of the 25th I was reminded of my own graduation. there was a rule that male students could not wear shorts to graduation. apparently a previous class of students wore nothing at all. any how, graduation rolls around and it hot. 95 hot. graduation was in an uninsulated steel building with a black roof. no way was i going to wear long pants.

Rules for the sake of rules have never been that important to me. I do stop at stoplights in the middle of the night, but not because of the rule. it's because when driving cab I saw a husband (and somebody elses wife) get creamed by a semi hauling gravel, way over his registered load. 80 tons at aproximately 60 miles per hour. kinetic energy= 1/2m(v*v). you can do the math, but there wasn't much left of them. The stoplight thing is a rule for a good reason.

the shorts thing just wasn't. I hate being hot. I could never live in the tropics. I can barely visit. I spent one awful summer in South Carolina. I have a beloved friend who lives on big pine key. I pray for his sanity. The heat does things to people. to arbitrarily impose a dress code on me in this kind of weather was just something that never occurred to me that I would follow. I didn't think I was doing anything bad or spiteful, I just wasn't going to be uncomfortable. (I'm still like that. It drives my wife nuts) Without even thinking about it or for that matter even trying I made it all to the edge of the podium before anyone noticed.

"Mr. Hare" the vice principal says to me. "are you aware that students are not allowed to wear shorts to graduation, and that the principal has sent over twenty students home alreadt for this?"

"No Dr. Frazer I wasn't aware of this" I say knowing that he has recently, and successfully, defended his doctoral thesis, and that his boss didn't do a damn thing to acknowledge it

"Well Crash," he said, reminding me of the time, while bussing tables, A 22 inch bakelite bowl full of coleslaw slid off a tray I was carrying and split open on his not quite drunk skull. "I really shouldn't do this but I'm just going to pretend that I didn't notice."

And that was the end of it. A little respect got a whole lot of reasonableness. The good doctor did get into trouble. Kind of alot considering how unimportant the issue. It does, however, have a happy ending. the principal is now unemployed and the good doctor is now the principal and soon to be my wonderful little sister's boss.