I can’t express how proud I am of my oldest son Andrew and his recent graduation from Wills Point High School. He not only graduated with honors, but also as a member of the National Honor Society. I’m not sure if those always go together. It seemed like there were those graduating with honors who were not members of the National Honor Society. But he was.

It has been a real joy to realize how much he has overcome in his 12 years of schooling. When he started in kindergarten, at a classical Christian Academy, I discovered that he was dyslexic, and I was told he would never be able to read, or go to college. He reads fine. He thinks clearly. He applied to a college, and got accepted with a boat load of scholarships. I guess those prognosticators in that classical Christian academy were wrong.  I won’t name the academy, but you can probably guess from the pics below.

Now, it isn’t just his academic achievements that give me reason to be proud of him. In the past three months, he actually bought a used Mazda RX8. He knew that it needed some work on it, but he didn’t know the extent of it. Well, turns out, it needed a new engine. As he said, with a rotary engine, it runs on a Dorito chip, or a cylinder shaped like a Dorito chip inside the engine. All three points of the Dorito chip were broken, which meant: it needed a new engine.

This didn’t stop him. After a short lamentation for the situation, he and the man helping him, went to work finding another engine and rebuilding it. He got it running, got the inspection and tags, and came to visit me earlier in the week. See pics below.

One other thing, he got his first job. He is now making enough money to fill up the tank of his RX8, which he says, only gets about 18 mpg. Not what you would expect, but I guess there is a price to pay for being sporty.

The following are the earliest pictures I could find of him as a student at Augustine Christian Academy in Jackson, Tennessee. Well, I guess I did name it after all.

A few pictures of Andy and the rebuilt Mazda RX8.

I didn’t get the chance to take him out after the graduation, so we went this week to Southern Roots Brewing Company. It’s the same place the guys from the church went for fellowship one night, and I was able to determine that it has some of the best pizza in town.

I couldn’t leave out Joseph.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2024.