On the Class of 2009

My wife and I attended the H.S. graduation ceremonies of a nephew and his class this past Friday night. A couple of notes on the ceremony:

(1) Is quoting Dr. Seuss by the honored graduating students some kind of a trend we're going to have to endure for the next decade? If so, I may rather stay home and send my graduate a nice card and some money. At the last two graduations we've attended long passages from Dr. Seuss have been quoted. But I guess that when you raise up a generation on Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, etc., well, you get what you pay for.

(2) How many scholarships are given out these days? At this particular ceremony a large amount of the time was spent in (formally) handing out college scholarships to various students. It sort of reminded me of Little League Baseball, where everybody gets a trophy. But maybe I'm too cynical; maybe there were simply an inordinate number of outstanding students in this particular class.

(3) One of the honored students -- Salutatorian or Valedictorian, I don't know which -- mentioned, in a very satisfied tone of voice, that her generation had witnessed the first election of an 'African-American' to the presidency. She said that the world as we know it would soon change because of Hussein's election. She doesn't know how very right she is in that respect. Otherwise, she's in for a big let-down. But I imagine that because of Obama she's inspired to become ... whatever it is she's inspired to become.

Well, enough of that already. I liked the keynote speaker. I don't recall his name, but his bio was pretty impressive. He was also fairly straight-forward in his speech, while working into the speech some funny and witty lines as well. He wasn't the best speechifier in the world, but he was a real person with real experiences, self-made, self-motivated, and all of that. He alluded, in the speech, to the fact that the goal of a proper education is to prepare one to be useful in his future stations (now where have I heard that before?). I hope that the graduates paid close attention to his good advice ... and that their parents and their community have well prepared them to follow it. As for our graduate, I know this is the case.