Valedictory

Once in a while, for no reason, the Universe treats you to something special. It happened to me yesterday afternoon.

Apparently, it is traditional for the PTSA President to sit with the distinguished guests on the dais during the school's graduation ceremony. Not only did the school send me a letter of invitation, they also called me to let me know the letter would be coming. Yesterday morning, at work, the school secretary called to tell me there'd be parking for me, and sure enough, there it was...rock star parking with my name on it.

Before the ceremony, I and the other distinguished guests met with the principal to review the order of events during the ceremony. Surely, I thought, they will have something for me to do during the ceremony. Shake a hand, present a plaque. (I've got hand shaking skills, plaque presenting skills, numchuck skills...JEEZ!)

No.

Apparently, I was just there to be eye candy.

Because I had time to just observe, I was able to reminisce about the last time I attended a high school graduation...you guessed it, my own, in East Hartford, Connecticut. I remember being as excited and happy as the Class of 2005 clearly was, waiting in the gym for the march onto the football field. Some things have changed (the colors of the gowns, the hair styles, the sobriety of the graduates) and some things have not (everything else).

With ten minutes left before the ceremony, and all in readiness, the grads got restless...and they (like my classmates and I did 26 years ago) began the rhythm beat from Queen's "We Will Rock You": Stomp-stomp-CLAP--Stomp-stomp-CLAP. In my head, I sang..."Buddy, you're a young man hard man shoutin' in the street gonna take on the world someday..."

And suddenly, I wished I was back at my own graduation. I was dating my first real love, Annette, and she was (at that moment, 26 years ago), sitting proudly with my parents. She and I had plans for a graduation dinner date, a special dinner for a happy seventeen year old man and his beautiful fifteen year old love.

Later that night, two buddies and I hopped into a '75 Honda Civic and drove ten hours to Hamilton, Ontario...my first time out of the country...to the International Warbirds Association Fly-In and Airshow. We planned to set up camp at one of the campgrounds near the airfield, but as it turned out, all the camp grounds were full. One of my buddies lived next door to a guy who owned a vintage Navy fighter plane, so we sought him out to ask for advice. The guy simply smiled and said, "Come with me." When he found the air show security officer, he introduced us all by name and said, "These guys are my ground crew, and they've driven up from Connecticut. I need three more flight line passes and permission for them to pitch their tent under the wing of my plane." It was that simple. We had the run of the place, and would be allowed to watch the airshows on Saturday and Sunday from the flight line...for the price of simply watching the tip of this gentleman's wing as he taxied in and out of his spot. Better still for three guys obsessed with historic airplanes, there were dozens of them there. And we were allowed to walk among them, to touch them, to breathe in their oily smells...it was Heaven. On Sunday morning, we awoke to the sound of a 1,500 horsepower Rolls Royce engine as it lifted a vintage fighter plane aloft...before my eyes were open, I might as well have been in England in 1944.

Knowing I couldn't go back and do it all again, I just wished as good a graduation weekend on these amazing kids.* (I'd call them young people, but that would be to admit that I am not young any longer, which of course isn't true.)

The valedictorian gave possibly the best speech I have ever heard, and I truly wish I could post the text of it here. Sadly, I cannot even summarize, since I was simultaneously laughing too hard and trying to swallow the lump in my throat. The layering of his memories on top of my own was a bit tough to handle. He chided other valedictorians for quoting the obvious Maya Angelou and the still more obvious John F. Kennedy, and concluded his brilliant valedictory with a quote from Alice Cooper (whom he referred to as an "eminent philosopher"): "School's out for summer. School's out forever."

That was actually the only point he made that I disagree with. So many times, we focus on the goal as an end, when in reality it should merely be a milepost. I studied martial arts for several years with a 6th degree black belt. He and I are of an age, and he'd often invite me into his office for conversation...times that were philosophical lessons for me and as important to my study of martial arts as the kata. He said to me one day, "When you get right down to it, I really don't know very much. The more you learn, the more you know; the more you know, the more you realize you have more to learn."

School is most definitely not out forever, whether you go on to Harvard (as this young man will), or go on down the hill to McDonald's. I never went to college, but you'd probably never know it. Once in a while, I'm asked where I got my political science degree, and I answer, "Off the coast of Lebanon." What you learn and where you learn it is nowhere near as important as continuing to learn. The moment you stop learning is the moment you get old.

My wish for the Class of 2005? May they never grow old.

* And I am not being loose with the term "amazing"; one of them has already won an Emmy award.