The Best Graduation Speech Ever...Sort Of

"St. John's"

I have a friend named Mulligan who lives down the lane. Some mornings he comes by for coffee and a talk; mostly he talks and I listen. I do not know what Mulligan does for a living exactly, but he once told me that, "I made money the old fashioned way; by using other peoples' money." Apparently, this talent has also provided him with a lot of free time.

Since it's June, our "discussion" turned towards graduations:

"I went to St. John's College in Maryland; they also have a campus in Santa Fe," Mulligan explained. "I had gone to a Jesuit high school in New York, where they taught Latin and Greek as if it was punishment for some unknown offense. Still, there was something attractive about the Classics to me, and St. John's specialized in classical Great Books education, from both Western and Eastern traditions.

I'm not exactly proud of the way I wound up going there. My grandfather was a pretty successful guy; he had gone straight to work after graduating from the eighth grade, and never stopped. He was a self-made man, who disliked Joe Kennedy, 'Ivy Leaguers,' and off-the-rack clothing in that order. He told me that he would pay the entire cost of my college education as long as I attended the college of his choice, St. John's. He meant, of course, the one located in Queens, primarily known for its basketball and baseball teams, and for its Law School, an entry-ticket into the theatre of local politics.

Tenaka

I had been a very good student and was actually a serious candidate for admission to the schools today's parents slobber over, Harvard, Princeton and Yale, naturally; and, in my day, Columbia and MIT as well. But, it became obvious that I could not ask my parents to pay big bucks, while turning down a free ride. So, I played a little four-year trick on my unsuspecting grandfather, who dutifully made out the checks, including my allowance to 'St. John's.'

I 'read' only the Classics in college, Herodotus, Catullus, Confucius, and had a real passion for the Eastern spiritual traditions: Taoism, Buddhism, etc. As graduation neared, I was named to a select team to pick the speaker. Since both of the other two team members had gone off to join some lower case version of Kesey's Merry Pranksters near Santa Fe, I got to make the decision all by myself. So, I invited the Roshi from a well-known Zen Monastery on Maryland's Eastern shore, where I had spent some time: Tenaka.

At Commencement, Tenaka walked to the microphone on the stage full of academic dignitaries, and we all waited in the hot, muggy air for what he had to say, especially me, for obvious reasons. Roshi walked slowly to the mike in his saffron and crimson robes. He was short and the audience could just see his full head above the podium. He looked out at that audience, then turned and looked at the dignitaries behind him, all of whom smiled back at his calm, unlined face.

And we waited and waited....and then waited some more. Roshi just looked out into the crowd of black-robed graduates and expectant relatives and faculty. And he kept looking at them minute after minute, after very slow minute. You could almost hear a ticking sound as we began to shift uncomfortably in our chairs, wipe the sweat from our eyes, wonder if the old gentleman was having some kind of a stroke.

"Graduation"

After a while, the President of the College and the Head of the Trustees began to stare at me in my seat of honor in the front row, and I became the most uncomfortable one of all in a sea of discomfort. 'Say something. Anything.' I thought to my embarrassed self. But, it finally became clear that Tenaka wasn't going to say a thing; he was going to stand there, and I was going to have to suffer for it all the way through, I supposed, the full 12-15 minute suggested length of the "speech."

When the audience had tired of wiping all the sweat away, shimmying in their seats, giving funny looks, and rolling their eyeballs, the murmuring began, then it turned into a steady rumble, and then some began to shout some pretty rude things at Tenaka. He just continued to look over the crowd as if he were looking over a field of poppies or a beautiful seascape in his native Japan. The more uncomfortable we became, the more serene Roshi seemed to be.

Just before he 'finished,' it finally occurred to me that he had in fact made the perfect speech. By saying nothing, he had said it all, at least to me. It was as if he really had said, 'you're all so full of yourselves that you do not even remember who you really are or were meant to be. You've been getting your pablum in many forms for a long time and I am not going to give you any more. You expected a message about the evils of money or war, helping people in Africa, or following your 'bliss.' But, life is not about anything, not health or love or soul or body or meditation, and certainly not about a bliss derived from drugs or ego...

...Life is, is all. Tough luck. Thank you, now, I'm going.' Or, something like that, I supposed. It sounded better unsaid.

By the time we had received our diplomas, most people were just happy to get into the shade and smoke a doob, rather than to think too much about the 'stunt' the so-called speaker had sprung on them. For some parents, it confirmed what they had thought all along about their daughters' and sons' decision to study only the Great Books. What kind of job could you get with that, they wondered? And might be wondering still.

I escorted Roshi to the car waiting to take him back to the monastery. I'm proud to say that neither one of us said a single word. He just got into the car and drove off.

"But what happened," I asked Mulligsn, "when your grandfather asked about attending his St. John's graduation?"

"Aquaduct"

"I couldn't disappoint him. I had a friend who worked in administration at his St. John's in Queens. She simply added me to the list of graduates and diplomas to be printed. They had such a large graduating class that nobody noticed. I invited my grandfather (I had already 'confessed' to my parents some time before), took my seat, received my 'diploma,' and went to lunch at 21 Club, wearing a new graduation suit made for me by my grandfather's tailor, Promevitz. Later I went to Aqueduct and made the last two races."

"Who was the speaker at that graduation?" I asked. "Haven't a clue." said Mulligan.

From Caveat Emptor To Carpe Diem

4 for me, 1 for you, 4 for...

Am I the only one who thinks that we have become a nation of accountants and interns? No, I though so.

Growing up, even in a largely upper-middle class community, I do not remember people being so interested in the Dow Jones Average, the Federal Budget, and Secretary of the Treasury, bank CEO's (please), and certainly not the head of the Federal Reserve Board. We're even becoming experts on public pensions, which requires knowledge of a very special kind of math.

We used to save all that boring stuff for school. Yuch.

Yet, pick up what passes for a newspaper today, turn on the TV, or simply stand in line at a bank or waiting for a plane, and somebody is telling you all about these things...and more: The Deficit (again!), Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security (again!), interest on the National Debt, etc. The sky is falling in pieces made of quarters and dimes.

Meanwhile, corporate America has trillions in cash on hand, while we hear and read ad infinitum about the official jobless rate of 9% plus, which means to anyone with a brain that the real jobless rate is closer to 15-18% or higher.

In-Turns

And, while some companies are hiring, they are not adding any new jobs. Why would bean-counting CFO's approve jobs, when people who still have jobs are working overtime for no extra pay? When they leave the office, they work on their BlackBerrys and computers at home, on the train/plane, even while driving ? These folks are willing to hold on to these jobs despite the disappearance of some benefits and the ever-escalating cost of their share of healthcare premiums. How do we account for this insanity?

Every business and non-profit organization appears to have fallen in love with "internships." At Thirdgarage, we call these "in-turnships," in which the worker does everything asked, for free or for very low pay and zero benefits, and the organization, in-turn, owns the value of the work and does not owe squat to the worker.

What a great concept! For accountants. But, not so great for young college grads or boomers trying to stay in or re-enter the workforce.

Shanghaied

Is it a wonder that in an environment, in which we politely and incorrectly refer to the result of organized, massive stealing (really bad accounting!) by those who were meant to protect our financial system as a "recession," we do not have great political leadership? In Washington, Albany, Sacramento, they all sound like accountants, or more precisely, accounting professors, whom in-turns have provided massive amounts of mind-numbing data.

But, nobody actually ever does anything, unless, of course, you call playing accounting-chicken real action. It' just cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. Oy.

We bought the whole concept of corporate and public capitalism and quarterly accounting hook, line and sinker. Even the Chinese thought it was a great idea, and it is for about 300 million of their 1.3 billion people. They even continue to lend us money so that their Party can keep our party going strong until...we have to account for our actions and do something about it.

Seize! Not Seizure.

Which would be right about now. Until we wake up to that fact, we will be stuck listening to the accountants jabber. Where is our Lincoln, our Churchill, our Ike at D-Day. Where is the next generation of women to call all of this BS and lead us beyond the balance sheets and Power Points and get us balanced and powerful again?

We forgot about Caveat Emptor, big time, but we can still Carpe this f*@#*#g Diem. 

Moving

move. v. to change in position from one point to another; to follow some specified course; to stir the emotions.

                                                                         I

ginkgos never forget

My favorite dictionary, which has remained nearby on various desks and tables in a number of rooms and homes over forty years, devotes seven inches to the verb, move. Nowhere in those seven inches is there a warning about why one might not even attempt to do so, and maybe there should be. But, we would ignore it, I'm sure, out of curiosity, or just because we must do what we must do, sometimes when we least want to do it, but also, on occasion, at just the right time. We don't get to decide these things, no matter the size our car, bank account, or ego; we just get to think that we do, because we're human and because we're inherently silly.

Sometimes in life, we really do get what we wish for: the girl or boy, that perfect job, the last- second goal, the house to die for. Before the dream plays out, we suffer. Awake at night, on too many nights, we stare out the window from our bed at the red light on the corner; the headlights of a turning car shine on us, as if God has answered our plea, but it won't be that night, or the next, or even the next.

Walking the dog in the dark late on another night ,we reach out to touch the bark of a beloved gingko tree, as we might reach out from the platform to someone we love who is departing on a train too soon. "Don't go yet," our fingers seem to be spelling out in braille. For, in love for people and homes, we are indeed blind.

But, we've had one more autumn than we supposed, when the yellow ginkgo leaves mixed with the crimson ones from the japanese maple, forming a path up the stairs, little buddhist monks ascending. And that is a very good thing to have had.



                                                                             II

Little Monks

These wishes come in their own time, and while you are waiting and waiting, you discover things that you had forgotten or never knew. You will open an old wooden box with rope handles and find treasure: a brother's first baseman's mitt; an old Jack Kramer from camp; another like it in a green 1962 canvas cover, still perfect in its press, gut intact; hockey pucks and a well-used mouthguard.

Old

Did someone say books? A regular Strand on each floor, musty cellar to vast attic, many not even on the library shelves, where there are about 1200. Almost all keepers there. So, you must donate, discard, dust each one you save, then box, bag, stack and carry every last blessed one of them. All your life, you've loved books from the very first two -a Grossett & Dunlap Riders of The Purple Sage and a Doubleday orange Kipling - and you will come mighty close to not wanting to see or hold another book...ever again, but it will pass, while you chose the 100 or so that will fit snuggly on the new shelves.



And, you stand in the kitchen, looking at the big old Paris clock and think: where in the world will we put that?

In fact, you also sit on the floor of the new place, months before you will move and wonder what it will be like to live here. Where will this and that go? Will the TV work over the fireplace and mantle? Will the dining room table from our old, old house work again in this one? And, where, oh where will we fit all of the things, generations of things, in 2500 sq ft. that lazed about so easily in 6,000? Yet, you love this new place in a way that is hard to describe, perhaps because you have not yet let yourself fully love it for fear of offending the memories still residing in the other place you've loved much longer.

And, where will that clock go?

                                                                          III

Last Train, 35 Mins.


Where some home browsers hear noise, you hear sounds: trains arriving and departing, tooting; especially the diesels, and the last train departing GCT at 1:40am, hopefully with a son or daughter on it and your friends' too, and its arrival at exactly 2:40am; you count the ten minutes until you hear the front door open. Glorious, safe sound.

Oh joyous moment, on that first night in the new place, when you hear the train toot at the new nearby station together. Ecstasy of a kind.

The big clock ticks in the new place, but the hands will not move, as if time has actually stopped and you are stuck in between one universe and another.



                                                                        IV

New

Where other visitors saw and heard traffic and dust, you witnessed the world going by on ancient and new roads outside the old gate.

Again, you rejoice one morning while showing the dog her newly appointed path, as you hear the traffic on the Turnpike and it sounds just the same as it used to, at least in your imagination, like waves constantly breaking on a shore.

Boxes get filled, trucks get filled, a new cellar is filled with what got emptied from another one. Too many clothes try to get into smaller closets, like one who has not been exercising trying to get into that favorite suit or dress. Well, we 'll have to start feeding these closets!

And one day, one amazing day, after near-panic, actual panic, fear of this and that and an exhaustion you've never quite felt before except when someone close had died, after sleeping like the proverbial baby...it is over. You've moved. You begin to recognize a kind of buoyancy that you've been missing.

Good As Old

You go downstairs and into the new library, push the minute hand of the big clock in a certain way, and, it begins to move, one minute at a time, and keeps on moving, and so do you.