Traditions come, traditions go

May 1 came and went with nary a May basket left on my doorstep. But I wasn’t too surprised. There hasn’t been a May basket out there on May Day since my youngest moved out of second grade. So May Day is another tradition that has had its day — or its years — and is now just a memory.
Another tradition that has left us behind is baccalaureate. Long a tradition, graduates got to wear their caps and gowns for the first time the Sunday night before graduation the following Wednesday. Back in the “olden days,” which means when I graduated, and my two sisters before me, baccalaureate was the prelude to graduation. It was probably more meaningful to the female students. We donned formals (yes, back then, girls wore formals under their gowns), boys wore dress pants, and I can’t remember seeing a tennis shoe on any of the soon-to-be graduates.