Homecoming

I still don't quite understand the Homecoming tradition. I know that it attempts to promote school spirit around a football game, but why there is a coronation and why middle-schoolers dress in wacky costumes is not clear to me. I am trying to figure out how I, as a teacher, and how my son, as a senior, fit in.
We are celebrating 'coming home' by moving back into our Minnesota home and looking forward to fall and winter festivities surrounded by family and friends.

An unexpected bonus of moving back to the US was having old friends be able to come and visit. These are friends we made overseas, but have the Midwest as their home base. We reunited with some Kwaj friends and their three year old son. Fortunately the weather was warm enough for us to visit outside and enjoy the balmy end of summer season. The only down fall was the dropping walnuts. Our yard has three huge trees that drop their nuts the size of golf balls with every gust of wind. The nuts hit the roof, rain down on cars and patio furniture and cover the ground. Any activity outside becomes one of "duck and cover", always alert of falling nuts. Sitting outside becomes hazardous, and I have been struck on the head while sipping a glass of wine.
These conditions didn't deter our visiting three year old. He  promptly donned a bike helmet he found in the garage and continued to explore the back yard. There were nuts to toss, squirrels to chase, seedpods to pop and a garden with cherry tomatoes just ripe for the picking. Inside the house was a basement and an attic with endless possibilities for finding hidden treasures.

He discovered the delight of fishing off the dock and brought back my few years here when my sons were that age. They enjoyed the same delight in catching an ugly old bull head and then being afraid to touch it. I found myself once again doing the unwelcome job of de-hooking the fish.
At that time we had moved back to the US exactly because we wanted our boys to experience the simple pleasures that come with growing up in a small town in the Midwest.
So why did we leave again and take our family globe trotting, in and out of three high schools on different continents? In the backs of our minds we did have a nagging concern that we were depriving them of a wholesome childhood at the expense of our wanderlust.

My friends have now left with their little boy and travel half way across the globe to their home far away and I ponder this anew. In some ways all of my sons' life was a series of field trips. Trips out to explore new geography, to learn of the history and culture of their home, to see the living world around them. Then traveling back to the US each summer was yet another field trip to visit the people and history that make them who they are today.
I know at least one of my sons is tired of these trips, that like school field trips, are more about learning something new and less about pleasure.

Wherever we are, childhood is about learning, growing, exploring and pushing back boundaries. My children certainly have had the opportunity for that both home and abroad.  And while my boys have never had the chance to be crowned Homecoming king, they do understand the meaning of Homecoming. We come home to appreciate our roots before heading back out to take in some more of what the world has to offer. My oldest was described as "not a risk taker" at the age of three. Now I can see him very easily going on a scientific exploration of Antarctica!