My commencement address
It’s that season again.
The nation’s, no, the world’s notables are fanning out around the globe – dispensing their wisdom at learning institutions with their personally crafted commencement speeches. I haven’t paid much attention to any commencement speech since June 1, 1966 – the day I graduated from Uniontown Joint Senior High School.
That speech was given by the president of Bethany (W.Va.) College, Dr. Perry E. Gresham.
Dr. Gresham would probably get booed out of Uniontown if he gave his 1966 commencement speech today.
“Each senior has an inner image of the person HE hopes to become,” he declared. “HE has learned to identify HIMSELF with great MEN of science, power, money, daring, and genius in any field,” he told us Uniontown high school grads.
I don’t remember there being any controversy about his dunderheaded take on where women (didn’t) stand in society.
Nowadays, though, some folks are getting vexed before people give their commencement addresses.
Down at Duke University (Durham, N.C.), dozens of irate students walked out of comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s commencement address because he’d said he supported Israel after it had been attacked by Hamas last October.
When Seinfeld started to speak, the protesters headed for the exits. But a majority of the parents and students stayed put, booed the protesters, and they allowed Seinfeld to complete his address without incident.
While I’ve never really paid much attention to these commencement addresses in the past, I did a little research for this column on some of the more memorable ones.
Oprah Winfrey gave the 2013 commencement address at Harvard University.
Oprah has a net worth of $3 billion. But I think she would have donated much of her wealth just for the opportunity she got when she stepped up to the microphone and she said, “Oh, my goodness. I’m at Harrrrrrrrrrvard!!!”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the commencement exercises at Oberlin (Ohio) College in 1965. He told the graduating students and their parents, “All mankind is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” And he added, “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
It’s said that one of the most distinctive commencement addresses was given beyond the shores of America.
Winston Churchill was the prime minister of the United Kingdom in 1941 when he gave his alma mater’s (Harrow School in London) commencement address.
He must’ve been in a rush. He stood up and said, “Never give up. Never give up.” Then he went and sat back down.
A man of few words – at least that day.
That is a lofty goal. To say so much, while, in reality – saying so little.
I need practice.
Today, I’m going to write my own commencement address. Be mindful that my career has never yielded much of anything worthy of bestowing any form of wisdom. My life, for the most part, has been steeped in mediocrity.
But here goes:
“To you, the graduates of this venerable institution, NEVER GIVE UP. NEVER GIVE UP. But if you do give up, seek solace in the knowledge that failure can still only be a temporary state of existence.
“And success, though, can be right around the corner.
Over the years, I have learned to thumb my nose at the obstacles that have been placed before me (or the ones I’ve placed there myself). When I first graduated from this prestigious place, I was penniless, and without any true motivation to do much of anything worthy of note.
“But that didn’t last, after I decided to go forth in the world and make sentence-after-sentence-after-sentence that contained verbs and nouns and sometimes adverbs.
“Writing became my calling, even though I was lousy at this English stuff.
“Now look at me.
“I’ve been able to put together enough sentences to bore the masses.
“This, too, can become your destiny.
“All you need is to make up some sentences, and some people might buy them.
“That’s it.
“Good luck!”
Al Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 50-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.