06/03/2007

Rite Of Passage

Graduation party season under way for another year

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

Record-Eagle/Garret Ellison
From left, stepmother Biz Ruskowski, father Jerry Ruskowski Sr., mother Liz Berger and stepfather Mike Kroes wear their support for Jerry Ruskowski Jr., far right, who is graduating from Traverse City West High School this year. His graduation party last weekend had a political theme.

It's no accident that Jerry Ruskowski is governor of the student senate at Traverse City West Senior High.

The graduating senior is an aspiring politician bound for the James Madison College of public policy at Michigan State University this fall.

So when it came to planning his graduation party, mom Liz Berger had little trouble coming up with a theme.

"She's basing my graduation party on an old-time election,” said Ruskowski, 18. before the party. "She's putting up the red, white and blue (bunting), she's getting these straw hats, our front porch is going to look like a podium.”

With graduation season already under way, so is the unique cultural tradition called the graduation party. Running the gamut from casual open houses with picnic fare to tented and catered affairs complete with entertainment, the events are in many ways similar to weddings, said one northern Michigan caterer.

"I've seen the most sane people become complete idiots about stuff,” said Suz McLaughlin, owner of Still Grinning Kitchens in Frankfort.

Over the last 30 years, McLaughlin has catered countless graduation parties, though never in such abundance as in northern Michigan. This year she expects to provide the food — mostly vegetarian, with an emphasis on local growers — for about 10 of them, none like the parties she recalls from her own graduation days.

"Maybe there were a few parties, and it seems like they were family things, with Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt and Uncle, but nothing big,” she said. "It was like, 'So you graduated; big deal.' I've heard of some people around here hitting up to 30 parties a day — and you don't want your party to be on the same day as someone else's party.”

While McLaughlin said she is somewhat mystified by the event's importance, few of her clients are as ambivalent.

"I work with some people who call it a rite of passage and they really want to do it up to people who are amazingly indulgent,” she said. "It's actually quite astonishing to me. It seems to me that in a way it's a little more for the parents in some aspects than it is for the children. I can remember one several years ago being bummed out because they couldn't get a steel band for their child's graduation party.”

Ruskowski's party will be minus the inflatable bounce house his mom first proposed renting. But it will feature a picnic spread of the kind popular when early political candidates stumped through the countryside.

"The politicians would roll into town and give away free beer to try to get people to come and hear the candidates,” he said. "We won't have beer at my party, but we'll have hot dogs, potato salad and a picnic.

In keeping with the theme, his graduation announcement-open house invitation — printed against an American flag background — urged guests to "Vote for Jerry,” then on the reverse reads: "Well, someday, anyway. But do join us for his graduation party.”

Anne Prisk didn't want "traditional” open house food of meatballs and coleslaw, so went in another direction entirely for her party.

"It's all desserts,” said the West Senior High student, a friend of Ruskowski. "It worked out better for everybody to have it during the evening, so we figured that people could go to other open houses and have their meal, and then come to mine for dessert.”

The outdoor event will feature dozens of unusual cheesecakes like hazelnut truffle, ginger and blueberry swirl, plus a chocolate fountain, chocolate-dipped strawberries and other tempting desserts. For friends with food allergies, there will even be dairy-free and gluten-free chocolate cakes.

"It's my last hurrah,” said Prisk, who reports for basic training June 27 at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., where she'll enroll this fall and run cross-country and track.

Prisk, 18, said she'll make many of the desserts herself, assisted by her mother, assorted relatives and perhaps even her father, West head football coach and enthusiastic cook Matt Prisk. But when it comes to sampling them, "I'm going to have to graze throughout the day and watch what I eat.”

Pam Mervau is expecting a crowd of up to 350 people to help celebrate son Matt's graduation from Traverse City Central High School.

"It's tradition in our family,” said Mervau, also co-chair of the Senior Party committee at Central. "Both sides of our families are from Traverse City and both me and my husband are Traverse City Central graduates.”

Besides being an excuse for friends and relatives to get together, she said the hoopla is the family's way of sending college-bound children on their way — both literally and figuratively.

"We still look at this as, 'They're an adult; my job is done. I've done what we can,'” she said. "It's kind of our way of saying, 'On to the next step.' And it's a big one.”

To help keep costs down, she said the Friday evening open house will take place at the Masonic Lodge where her father is a member. She'll prepare most of the food herself, from barbecue pork sandwiches to salads and nachos. Even the paper plates and napkins are essentially "free.”

"I cheated,” she said. "When my other son graduated in '04 I bought doubles of everything and I put it all in the closet.”

Still, with about $500 in food, plus rental fees and combination announcements-invitations — another $240 — Mervau said the party is a pricey proposition in a senior year full of expenses.

"It's kind of, at what point is it going to be too much for people to be able to afford to do it?” she said. "And at the same time, it's the expectation.”