Drop Kickin' Dom or How We Learned to Pay for College

Heavily bookmarked course catalog. Dom said there were too many cool classes

I shot a photo of Domenick like this when he was just learning to walk and actually thought about this moment was he waded into college life.

I often wonder if it's fair to so publicly expose my family to such a public life as I blog about my life through photos. I suspect they rarely think about it. Photography, my photography, has been such a common part of their lives it rarely seems to register with them when I'm making photos. So, it seemed natural that Domenick's send off to college (Humboldt State University) wouldn't be any acceptation.

When Domenick was accepted to Humboldt it seemed a far distant future. And as the days between his acceptance and his departure shrunk the realization he was really leaving home grew. The 715 miles seems, well, a lot further than 715 miles.

We spent a week with him at Humboldt, moving bags of clothing, odd sized sheets, a bicycle and a variety of last minute trips to hardware stores, Radio Shack and the local grocery. I shot dozens of photos with the iPhone shamelessly posting them to Facebook, again publicly, chronically the journey. But, it finally made sense when my youngest, Noah, helped my Mom set up her own Facebook account. She told my Father, as she made her way past the Mafia Wars, Pokes and gifts of sheep, that "this is the way my grandchildren communicate with each other. And if this is how I can stay involved in their lives...I'm going to learn how to do it!"

I'll miss Domenick's daily "physical" presence in our lives. We can talk on the phone, maybe Skype, though I suspect our communication will be limited, mostly, to short cryptic bursts of texting. And eventually, as he gains college friends around campus they'll start "tagging" photos of him on Facebook whilst living out their lives in a very public way. At least I'll get to see if he needs a haircut!