On High School Graduation

Graduation time has rolled around again. Forty-five years ago, I spoke for the Agawam High School class of 1978 at our graduation as President of the National Honor Society. Janet Webb actually deserved the honor and I sincerely apologize to her and her family for absolutely tanking it. I remember very little about the speech itself. I had put almost one half-derriere of effort into its crafting, and Mrs. Hamilton our Senior Adviser, upon reading it, sighed and shook her head. She handed it back to me, holding it between her thumb and index finger like a dirty rag stained with unknown liquids. She said something like, “Reading that was excruciating, Mark. Simply dreadful.”

Of the ceremony, I recall my name being called and then quickly scurrying back to my seat, but nothing in between. I sincerely regret letting that moment go by with nothing to show for it. Such is the way of many momentous occasions in life. They can pass by before you know it. Too often, we think of the most appropriate thing to say long after the historic has become history. That’s the point of this essay.

My motto is, “Leave it to the professionals”, so I’ve learned to steal from other wordsmiths when I want to illustrate a point. Two songs spring to mind when I think about what High School graduation, and coming of age, is all about. Carlos Santana wrote a song in 1971 called Everything Is Coming Our Way. I interpret the lyrics as a call to join together and celebrate the possibilities of what youth offers. I hope to put off most of what’s coming my way, but you have a responsibility to yourself to seize whatever possibility you want and find out where you can take it.

The other song was written by Mike Scott of a British-Irish rock band, the Waterboys, in 1985. This Is the Sea is about the journey we all take in life and how we spend too much time focusing on the daily grind of here and now. We’re all traveling downriver and it seems we concentrate our attention on one bank or the other, or back upstream at where we’ve been. Most of us float along and enjoy the scenery, but some of us are smart enough to look downstream, steering to avoid the obstacles. We deal with limitations that we impose on ourselves. The message of the song is that we’re all going to be bound by the banks of the river until we reach the limitless sea; hopefully before we’re too old to enjoy it.

Ignore Mike’s mixed metaphor in the last verse.

Now I hear there’s a train Its coming on down the line It’s yours if you hurry You’ve got still enough time

And you don’t need no ticket And you don’t pay no fee Because that was the river And this is the sea.

I realize that going back to songs of the 70's and 80's for a sentiment relevant to a current graduating class is a stretch. I have to assume that today’s popular music contains inspirational messages as well. Please forgive me if I go with what I know. My advice is to set sail. Explore the world and yourself. Just be ready for everything’s that’s coming your way. Your hometown will be there when you get back. It never changes.

Anyway, that’s what I meant to say all those long years ago. Bon voyage.