It’s graduation time again; high school and colleges alike. The end of May, and into June for some.
Here in the Atlanta Metro area it is common to see a banner at the entrance to every subdivision in 18 counties congratulating 1 or more students on graduating from HS or less frequently, college. There may just be one name, and their destination college, or 2 or 10 kids on the street will collaborate (split the cost) and show everyone, even from differing schools. Public or private, they’re all represented.
I graduated high school in Nashville, TN in 1981. There were no signs. I’m not aware of anywhere else in the USA that this is SOP for grads every single year, but then I’m never wandering Suburbia every June, either. I’ve been in Ponte Vedra for the month for the last 10 years or so. I don’t see them anywhere from JAX to UST.
Is this a thing where you are? Is it a thing that began years ago and is everywhere, or is it just an occasional phenomenon that 81% of you have never heard of?
The day we celebrated TheKid’s high school graduation, we festooned the yard with balloons, banners and streamers - all of which were removed after her open house.
The closest thing I have seen akin to what you describe is a few local businesses will have signs up congratulating new graduates / employees. That’s about it.
ISTM, IIRC, in the hood where I went to high school, the typical recognition for a grad was to wake up to find the tree in front of your house festooned with toilet paper.
Never heard of it - I’m in MD, but not that observant - so maybe it’s here. Closest thing I can think of is businesses had signs congratulating Michael Phelps during Olympics.
I’ve never seen them. I live in Michigan. I’ve read a book about the south though and it talked about something somewhat similar. It was a fiction book though so I’m wondering if the happenings in that book were based on stuff like that?
I haven’t seen any here in SoCal. The closest I’ve seen is a congratulatory message with the graduate’s name, school and graduation year painted on the windows of the parents’ car with white shoe polish or some other temporary paint. Also balloons on the door of the graduate’s house during the graduation party. Recently I attended a young friend’s high school graduation, and her parents did both of these things. I also remember cardboard signs with graduates’ names (and in a couple of cases giant photos of the graduate’s face) being waved enthusiastically in the bleachers during the ceremony.
SOP here. I’ve had one in my yard for the last few months (I think the school provides them, actually). They’re all over the neighborhood. None of them identify the grad by name, just school, year, and a logo of the mascot. I just took ours down a few days ago to mow. I stored it in the garage since the graduation’s over.
For the graduation party, my wife had two banners made with the grad’s name, pic, and honor student bona fides. One hung over the front porch, one inside on the wall. Both removed as soon as the party was over.
On edit: These are only on houses. Not the neighborhood entrance.
I’m also in Atlanta, but rarely see them. That is likely a function of where I live/how I commute though. I’m in the City of Decatur and ride the train downtown for work - my neighborhood seems to have more younger (elementary to middle school) aged kids, and I only really drive 1 residential street with any regularity.
I see cars decorated with “Class of 2013” and kids’ names and sometimes the colleges they’ll be going to, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen banners. I have seen several high schools put up the names of a couple of high-achievers on their sign by the road, congratulating them on getting into bigshot schools. Nothing in parks, open spaces, or private yards around here, and nothing at businesses except for a generic “Congrats Class of 2013” on their signs for a week.
And this is only in the US. I’ve never seen anything similar in Quebec.
I’m also in metro Atlanta, Roswell to be specific, and yea, all the neighborhoods are lousy with them. Any neighborhood large enough to have at least one high school grad has a banner congratulating them.
There’s one amusing neighborhood where on kid was left off, and has a different sign next to the big banner to make it up.
I’ve recently moved from Seattle to the Atlanta area, and it’s a bizarre difference to me. Back “home” I remember seeing “congratulations” signs up at schools or a few businesses, but nothing else. Here there are banners up all over the place, and the ones posted up at subdivision entrances even have names listed.
Do you also have a lot of shoes thrown over overhead wires there? When visiting a friend in the south, she explained that was done after graduation, but here in Minnesota we had never seen it.
I’ve seen business signs that will congratulate all the children of employees there, by [the graduate’s] first name. And I’ve seen generic banners for the week of graduation or so, but that’s it.
Plus it’s not like this is only done for graduation. I’ve seen it for other big milestones.