It is so exciting and emotional to have your son (or daughter) graduating from college.
Jon is our middle son and the first of our children to graduate from college but I just didn't know.....How ....special....this would be!
All three of our sons are in San Luis Obispo for Jon's graduation as well as their girlfriends and my parents. What a quaint little college town!
We walked around downtown and shopped this afternoon.
We went to Luna Red for dinner tonight at the base of the SLO Mission. It was an eclectic mix of Tapas. Very tasty!
It was great to be with the family and to share old stories and reminisce
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Afterward Mr. B went out with the youngsters. I took my parents to buy a hats, since tomorrow's graduation will be hot and out side.
Dad bought a fedora like Frank Sinatra and mom bought a light weight garden party hat! Very cute!!! I'll try and snap a photo tomorrow.
But.. Just after dinner we took my parents to.....
"Bubblegum Alley"
Lets leave it to say that they were not impressed!
Years of students leaving their bubblegum essence. Mmmm....
Some consider it historical, some consider it a landmark, some think it terribly unsanitary and others think of it as art!
According to Wikipedia.....
History
According to the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Business Improvement Association, the history of who actually started this gum fiesta is "a little sketchy"[3]. Some historians believe that the tradition of the Alley started after WWII as a San Luis Obispo High School graduating class event[4]. Others believe it to have started in the late 1950s as rivalry between San Luis Obispo High School and Cal Poly students. As soon as the Poly students suspected that the high school was trying to out-do them on the gum walls, the college students stepped up their game and immediately became more creative, thus launching Bubblegum Alley[3]. In any case, by the 1970s Bubblegum Alley was well under way. When shop owners complained that it was "unsanitary and disgusting"[5], the alley underwent a full cleaning. The gum graffiti survived two full cleanings in the '70s[3], but when, in 1996, the BIA attempted to have another full cleaning, it was not passed.Recognition
Throughout the years, San Luis Obispo's Bubblegum Alley has been featured on a number of television shows, news programs, and in newspapers around the world. Newspapers such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have addressed the disgusts and delights of the gum wall visitors. Other newspaper articles have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Grand Rapids Press in Michigan, the Times Union from Albany, New York, and The Guardian in the United Kingdom. KSBY Action 6 News did a story about the alleyway and broadcast it nationally.[6] TV crews filmed the alley for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, That's Incredible!, Real People, and on PBS[5]. MTV featured Bubblegum Alley in the show Call to Greatness.[7] The crew picked Bubblegum Alley to film the episode on breaking the world record for largest bubblegum bubble. It featured record holder Susan Montgumery Williams, or as she's known in the business, "Chewsy Suzy", and at the end of the show a graphic was shown that said that while she was there she blew a 24-inch (610 mm) bubble, which wasn't shown on TV (Her record bubble, which was blown on national TV in 1996, was 23 inches). ABC’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not also aired a story on October 14, 1984 about the alley. It was also featured on an episode of The Girls Next Door on E! and mentioned in an episode of "United States of Tara".We also celebrated my birthday when we returned to our hotel in Grover Beach.
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| Me (one year older) and Ashley! |
Glow in the dark Cosmo shakers! What every girl needs.......
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| Brought one home - Come on by to help me celebrate! |
Tomorrow Jon was asked to give a speech to the I.T. graduates.
I can hardly wait!
"The tassel's worth the hassle!" ~Author Unknown
This was a pretty sweet birthday gift to you from Jon.
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