Saturday, February 15, 2014

Middlest was Inducted in National Honor Society


Middlest was inducted into National Honor Society this week. This is a very wonderful honor, or at least I think so. I don’t really know what National Honor Society is, and I am not even sure if the High School I attended had a National Honor Society. I know there was a Future Farmer's of America club, a Four-H club, and a football team. These clubs and activities are quite normal for a school that sits in the middle of corn and potato fields, in the center of a county that is home to more cows than people.

Be assured that the area I grew up in has produced some people of honor. David Starr Jordan, the first president of Stanford University, was born in 1851, in the same town my mother lives in. I don't believe he and my mother ever met. Interestingly, Mr. Jordan's parents didn't send him to the local high school; instead they sent him to an All Girls’ school. Being a lone teenage male amongst all those female students helped him focus on his studies, I am sure.

He did well in high school and went on to college, where his area of study was ichthyology, which comes from the Greek words, “icky”, meaning yucky, and “ology” meaning science. He studied yucky things. In his case, the yucky things he studied were fish, he even has a few species named after him.

I hope Middlest doesn't study fish for two reasons. First, I am allergic to fish, and second, I don’t think she likes them. She really wants to be a dentist, or a biochemist. I do believe that she would make a fine college president. She is hard working, socially adept, intelligent, and has a thirst for knowledge.

She also is a team player, who always wants things to run smoothly. When she was five years old, she and her sisters were misbehaving. I huffed and puffed and prepared to roar as fathers are known to do. However, I was able to keep my voice low and speak calmly. All the while I spoke, Middlest sat with her fingers in her ears. When I finished, she took her fingers out and spoke plainly and clearly, using a chopping motion with one hand into the open palm of the other hand for emphasis. "Dad, when I think you are going to yell, you don't; when I don't think you are going to yell, you do. We have got to get together on this."

Even at that young age, she was a team player who wanted things to run smoothly.

And so, this week, Middlest was inducted into the National Honor Society. I went to the induction and still do not know what National Honor Society is about. I do know there were candles and pledges and organ music, but no one got married.

I am relieved no one got married, Middlest is way too young to be wed. 

1 comment:

  1. Rob, thanks for clearing up what ichthyology means. And congrats on Middlest making National Honor Society, whatever that is.

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