Traverse City Record-Eagle

Betty Werth

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May 28, 2008

Betty Werth: Graduation worth attention

BY BETTY WERTH

Ahh, graduation.

It's a strange ritual, when you think of it. You put on a shapeless "gown" that looks like a choir robe from the 1950s, stick a nylon-covered piece of cardboard on your head, and with 50 or 200 or 500 others dressed exactly like you, sit through a ceremony that except for minor particulars is a lot like every other graduation ceremony in America for the past 100 years.

Someone talks about the future, someone talks about the past, you file up on stage to get your diploma, the choir sings, the band plays and you march out. Ta-da! So passes 13 years of sitting up straight, coming in every day (Tuesday? It's only Tuesday?), listening to the teacher (could you repeat the question?), doing your assignments (my sister ate my lab report) and learning, learning, learning, one step, one year, at a time.

By the end of senior year you've read hundreds of pages of textbooks, written hundreds of paragraphs, done hundreds of math problems, taken hundreds of tests. The growth has been gradual and unless you look back at the little educational amoeba you were in kindergarten, when you couldn't say the alphabet without singing, it's hard to believe you didn't always know what you know now. Today you feel smart and ready to take on the world.

But please don't be too busy concentrating on the party to miss what's going on in the ceremony. That would be like thinking about your wedding reception while taking your vows (which, for all I know, may happen a lot) or like spending your raise before you actually get one (which ... ahem ... won't happen again).

A song written by Casey Michael Beathard and Chris Allen Wallin and sung by Kenny Chesney is particularly appropriate for graduates. Its theme is: "Don't blink; life goes faster than you think."

At 18, with all of life spread before you, time may be the least of your concerns. But life does go faster than you think -- faster than it used to and faster all the time -- and if you're too focused on what comes next you are likely to miss what's happening now.

Unless you are someday named "Citizen of the Year," make it on "American Idol," or skate for the Red Wings, you aren't likely to draw a hometown crowd this big again. Live in the moment. Walk proudly. Look around. Don't blink. And don't trip.

Don't worry that you're wearing a "one size fits none" gown and dorky hat, or that the ceremony you're sitting through is like every other graduation in America over the past 100 years. There are reasons these rituals have stood the test of time.

That outfit, which no one would ever wear for any other reason, is a privilege and a tradition. It marks you as having "made it" through 13 years of academic duty. You and your fellow grads wear that cap and gown not as a fashion statement, but because you've earned the right. And the ceremony? There is something to be said for that tradition, too. It is probably not the end of your educational road, as it once was, but stop and think a minute, guys and gals, moms and dads, because you will find it IS the end of childhood ... and that deserves a moment of reflection, too.

Reach Betty Werth at bwestrope@hotmail.com

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