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A survey of this year's commencement speeches shows that modesty is on the rise
Sunday, June 03, 2001
WASHINGTON -- This is the season for wisdom as imparted by the year's crop of commencement speakers. We have listened to many and find that while our derrieres and brains are somewhat frozen into numbness by the avalanche of cliches, we have heard some nuggets of self-deprecation worth passing on.
The world breathlessly watched former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton embark on her Senate career. What has she learned? This is what she told Yale University students at their annual Class Day:
"This is a life lesson my family did not teach me, Wellesley and Yale Law School failed to instill: Your hair will send significant messages to those around you. What hopes and dreams you have for the world . . . you have for your hair. Pay attention to your hair, because everyone else will."
President Bush also spoke at Yale, his alma mater. He said, "To those of you who received honors, awards, and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students, I say, you, too, can be president of the United States. A Yale degree is worth a lot, as I often remind Dick Cheney, who studied here, but left a little early. So now we know -- if you graduate from Yale, you become president. If you drop out, you get to be vice president."
Arizona Sen. John McCain told University of Pennsylvania students that he was honored to speak to them as "someone who graduated fifth from the bottom in the United States Naval Academy class of 1958." He added, "To stand here in full academia regalia and address an audience of distinguished academics and their learned students has affirmed my long-held faith that in America, anything is possible."
Possibly the most refreshing commencement speaker this spring was George Smith, a beloved 38-year-old janitor selected to speak by 32 graduating seniors at a small school in Creve Coeur, Mo. Before speaking, he set up the chairs and buffed the gym floor. Then he spoke: "Graduating seniors from Fern Ridge High School, I love you guys. It is your responsibility as young adults to maximize your fullest potential in a highly effective manner."
Then he asked students to repeat this bit of poetry: "I won't lose hope even when everything seems to be all wrong. I'll maintain a positive attitude, and stay real strong. Nothing is ever as bad as it seems. And even setbacks won't destroy my dreams."
After the ceremony, he packed up the chairs and buffed the floors again.
NBC anchor and "Greatest Generation" author Tom Brokaw, who has a ranch in Montana, told the Sweet Grass County High School in Big Timber, Mont., that he is clueless about the technical aspects of how his broadcasts reach televisions around the world. "It's a miracle. I'll leave it at that," he confessed. But technology, he told the 48 graduates, is not everything. "It is not enough to wire the world if you short-circuit your souls."
In Montpelier, Vt., Fred Rogers, famous for his make-believe TV neighborhood, greeted graduates of Middlebury College by singing his trademark, "It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" despite the rain falling on the graduates. Then he gave them this advice: "The outside things of life are not the really important things. It's our insides that make up who we are, that allow us to dream and wonder and feel for others. That's what's essential. That's what will always make the biggest difference in our world."
Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley warned graduates of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland to beware of the "box people." Box people form a "thin little crust of society" and tamp down imagination, creativity and enthusiasm, he said. "Don't lose the confidence you have today. Don't let the 'box people' take it away from you. It's too hard to get it back."
The graduates at the Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Del., were told by a justice on the state's highest court, Randy Holland, to remember when downhearted that when Shakespeare said to first kill all the lawyers, he was talking about how to establish tyranny. Holland's advice was to avoid working too hard, reminiscent of former first lady Barbara Bush, who told Wellesley graduates in 1990 that nobody facing death ever regretted not having spent more time at the office.
"You will be a better legal professional and a happier person if home is your top priority," Holland said. "The law will now always be a part of your life, but please, never let it become your life. Your life is at home."
TV celebrity Bryant Gumbel spoke at Howard University and was merciful. "I'll be brief, because I've never known a soul who could recall the words of their commencement speaker beyond a few short years of their graduation."
If that long.
Ann McFeatters is National Bureau chief for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio. Her e-mail address is amcfeatters@
nationalpress.com.