It is graduation time. Ah, the joy of listening to speakers, watching the graduates-to-be in procession, and selecting the right graduation gift. Ike is going on a cruise.

What, do you know of a 5-year-old who DOESN'T get a cruise for his graduation from pre-school?

Actually, this little adventure may have more to do with Ike's grandmother than with Ike's second annual graduation. (I'm not kidding. The kid has collected more sheepskins than Little Bo Peep.)

The lady of the house is so excited about it she can't sit still. She is even planning to have a certain Michael Mouse (overseer of the Disney Kingdom) give Ike a personal telephone call to tell him the good cruise news. But I smell a rat. Or at least trouble.

If you were 5, would you want to get a call from a mouse? Any mouse? How about a mouse who informs you that you are going to overnight on a big boat in the Atlantic Ocean? What would you think?

It would keep me up at night.

I ran this by a colleague at work and she agreed.

With her, at age 5, it was all about Fred Flintstone. She was entranced with the flat-footed cave dweller. I was a Barney Rubble fan myself, but that's not important right now.

My friend tells me her father knew someone who worked for the Flintstone Vitamin Company. The guy let her father borrow a 3-foot tall Fred head. He put it on when he got home.

Her father is a pretty tall guy as it is. With the Fred head, he must have looked like a giant. And how did the little girl react?

“I cried for a week.” she said.

I rest my mouse.

I wish I could rest my ears, too; but the lady of the house is also in the news for having procured an industrial-sized food blender that could make a fruit smoothie out of bad pavement. And it has the decibel level to prove it.

“You can put an iPhone in this,” she cheerily told me. “They did it in the TV ad.''

I'm not sure why one would do that. If you put in any phone, wouldn't a Blackberry make more sense?

What makes a lot more sense is bringing your vintage Manchester-area photos to one of three scanning parties the Union Leader is having at the Manchester Historic Association Millyard Museum this Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Working with the MHA and a book publisher, we will produce a “Manchester Memories” book that should be a great keepsake. For more info about the event and the kind of photos involved, please go to www.Manchester.PictorialBook.com.

And say “cheese.”

Write to Joe McQuaid at publisher@unionleader.com.