55°f/13°C, hazy from Canadian wildfire smoke.
Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit! Happy June, friends. Wishing you all luck, fortune, and health this month. If you can only have one, which would you choose? For me, it would be health. Although fortune sounds pretty good!
Yesterday was granddaughter Michaela's graduation party. She received her degree in forensic chemistry from WVU earlier this month. I am so proud of her, as that degree was no cake walk. I cannot even fathom how one's mind understands chemistry, but Michaela loves it.
Michaela with her mom and her brother James. My son Aaron is her Dad, but he was on the road for work when this was taken.
The party was in Fairmont, about 2 1/2 hours from here if we don't stop. But of course we stop so it takes us 3 hours. It was a beautiful day, highs in the 60s, and just the beginning of the arrival of the Canadian wildfire smoke.
Fairmont
I felt so blessed to have 5 grandchildren and one great-grand all in one place. Michaela is the youngest of the grands, and all the rest are working, and scattered from Florida to California.
From left: grandson James, daughter-in-law Jaime Haley's partner Desiree, Haley, Michaela, Aaron, Hannah, me, and Kaye with baby Jonny.
I sometimes joke that the next time all 14 will all be in the same place at the same time will be my funeral! But that might be close to the truth, actually. Just so hard to get 14 young people with busy lives together. But all of them are well and thriving.
I was thinking this morning about the grandchildren's life choices. Of the 14 of them, 8 have college degrees. Of the six without degrees, one is full-time National Guard, one is in the Navy, one is currently in electrician trade school, one is a songwriter/bartender, one manages stores, and one is currently unemployed but was an office manager. Four of these have some college credits, and two own their own homes. Two of the college grads also own homes. Three of the 14 have children. Quite a crew!
Neither of my parents went to college, although all of Dad's siblings did. Of us 13 children, I think 6 have at least a 2 year degree, and 2 of us have Master's degrees. One brother has enough credits for a four year degree but was pretty eclectic in his class choices so never really put it all together and didn't care---his interest was geology so he took courses related to that. None of us with college backgrounds had any parental assistance, of course, and none had GI Bill benefits either, so we managed on our own with scholarships and grants and working.
I wonder how our large family stacks up against national averages? For the grandchildren, with 12 of 14 having some college, they are well above the national average of about 66%. The same is true of my siblings--for our age group (60+), the national average is about 42%, so with 7 out 13 having some college, we are at about 53%.
Well, all of this is probably boring to anyone but me! I do wonder, though, with the current push to discourage college in favor of trades, what these statistics will be like for the next generation. Will they choose college, go to a trade school, or eschew formal education altogether? The Pew Research Center noted that college enrollment fell from 70% in 2020 to 62% among high school grads in 2022 (most recent available figures). Is this a continuing trend, or another effect of the pandemic? Are kids today opting for a more "free" type of life, free-lancing, working multiple part-time jobs, choosing the gig economy over a longterm career? This may well be the new trend.
I must say, I have enjoyed my retirement "jobs" of storyteller and reseller far more than I enjoyed my traditional career as a librarian. There is something to be said about controlling your own time and schedule. Of course, I have the safety net of Social Security, which may have fallen by the wayside by the time today's generation reaches retirement age. There may not even be such a thing as retirement age by then! Even today, most retired people i know have some sort of side gig.
Changing times for sure. More exciting, or more worrying? What do you think?
Ending today with last night's sunset. That Canadian smoke makes for a pretty sky as the sun goes down!
