Homecoming present and a little past.

How long has it been since YOUR high school homecoming?

I thought so.

It has been awhile for me, too.  Some things will never change--the energy, the energy, the energy.

Other things have.  It matters, of course, where your high school is, and when you graduated.

But honey--are you so young you expect the Homecoming mums to be artificial? I guess so the girls  can wear to the football game on Friday night and the dance on Saturday. Fealty is not in the flowers but the ribbons, many, many ribbons, of many patterns and limited shades (there are school colors, after all) that reach to the ankles of the girls so festooned. Apparently the number of ribbons is a factor.

But I saw an  arrangement larger than most wedding bouquets, a couple topped with white teddy bears, some with twink lights.

Exorbitance can include the number of feaux chrysanthemums and the number of ribbons--30 is about average. I saw girls in ripped jeans, hightop sneakers, plaid shortsleeve shirts over faded t shirts, sweep hula skirts of ribbons into  their arms to jog up to the top of the bleachers, then back down for jalepeno nachos and back up again, all without stumbling or dribbling.

The band played throughout, sang and shouted. Oh yeah! I sat next to the drumline. Actually, I loved it. Energy, again.

High school and middle school boys painted to the waist in school colors with their favorite number painted on chest and back. In high school? Well, there's pressure.

I saw more adults than you can imagine in an attractive, but currently not fashionable, shade of blue to support the team. Ball caps, Western hats. sneakers, boots. flats.

I went to watch my granddaughter perform. They did a good marching band performance of "Maleguena" assisted by the flag team.

I was planning to go to the game this week (home) but she tells me it will be the same halftime show  they are perfecting for competition. I swallowed my "b-b-b--"

Times have changed. In my day, we had a new performance every week. In my memory, it was great. It probably couldn't have come close to the performance I heard Friday night.

I loved the spirit, the noise, the expertise of these teens in dance, music, football, cheerleading. Just left me grooving.

But my 1950s self, who was grounded and never made it to senior homecoming, secretly sneers at  an artificial chrysanthemum and so many ribbons to the ankles you can't walk easily.

Don't tell anybody. I'll never tell my granddaughter. But we did it better in my day.