Well, to tell the truth, it's neither a sword day nor a red day, but it is a grand day, at least for my son, who heads off to The College of New Jersey in a couple of hours (escorted by his lovely mother, who's somehow managed to cram all manner of room-cleaning utensils and equipment into the already bulging back of our Ford Explorer).
It's nearly eighteen years ago now, yet it only seems five minutes since my old gran saw him for the first time. "Looks more like his mother than he does you," she said. "So the boy's already dodged one bullet. Let's hope he inherits her brains too."
Luckily for him, he has.
I left school just a couple of weeks after my sixteenth birthday, so I don't have any great advice to offer him other than, "Don't fall asleep in class."

He's a good lad. I'll miss him.