Looking Good

This past week I have been in FFA Land.

FFA Land is both a place and a time that happens a few of times of year. National FFA Convention is the biggest "FFA Land" of the year but similar activities, thoughts, and feelings also occur during State Convention and State CDEs.

Anyway, I am not really going to post about FFA Land other than to say it was on my mind when I arrived home to "Arkalalah Land". Arkalalah is a big deal for the people in the community of Ark City.  Basically, it starts Wednesday night and last until late Saturday evening. There are several parades, craft shows, carnivals, fried foods, helicopter rides, egg tosses, turtle races, Queen Alalah activities, and plenty of other fun things to do. I have never really been into Arkalalah, mainly because it usually falls on the same weekend of FFA Convention. But this year we came back a night early and got to hit up the tail end of Arkalalah, the "big parade".

I was sitting on the tailgate of my brothers old truck and I get a text from a student of mine:

"hey bogart"

I was tempted to ignore it. But it was a student that I had just taken to convention and I thought it might be important.

"What do you need?"

"Yea ummmmmmm can I have the od jacket I have right now"

This is one of my freshmen FFA members who had borrowed one of the chapter's FFA jackets to wear at FFA Convention. I just told him the chapter needed that jacket but we'd order him one. I thought that was the end of that.

Later, I was walking downtown during the parade to meet up with someone, and I thought I saw an FFA jacket through the masses of people. Really these streets are packed full of people. At first, I thought  it was because I had just arrived from the sea of blue FFA jackets only hours ago. However, I did a double-take and it was, in fact, one of my students in his FFA jacket. In fact the same student who had just texted me asking about keeping the FFA jacket.

I hollered his name and said, "What are you doing?"

He was in the middle of Arkalalah, in full out Official Dress (OD). He had on the right pants, shoes, and tie. Perfect FFA OD.

"Just wearing my OD!"

We couldn't really even stop to talk because of the traffic, so I just said, "Looking good!"

What was he doing?

This student never ceased in asking me one of these questions any chance he got while we were in Indy:

"Can I take my jacket off? It's hot."
"Do we get to go change yet?"
"When can we change?"
"When we go in this restaurant, can I take my jacket off?"
"That tie better be a clip-on tie!"
"I'm not wearing black shoes- I just brought my white tennis shoes."
"Can I just wear this FFA jacket with my jeans."

Needless to say, I set him straight real quick with all the ends and outs of proper FFA official dress.

Oh geez, he drove me crazy most of the week with his questions. However, there he was in perfect OD in the middle of Arkalalah a mere 12 hours after we had arrived in Ark City. He was so proud of that jacket. He was proud in a way I hadn't seen even some of the most dedicated FFA members be in long time. It made me smile....real big. He brought FFA Land back to Arkalalah Land. And he was looking good.