I’ve just come back from my nieces’ high school graduation. Brava M! Ausgescheisnit J!
This graduation took place in Burlington, Vermont, where they don’t take themselves too seriously, and the emphasis for most of the speakers (except the invited speaker, who no one clued in) was on amusing the audience. Garrison Keillor has it right, when people go through a long tough winter, under pressure from the elements, you get them speaking on a warm June day and they effervesce. There was the class speaker, on his way to a scholarship paid Harvard education, and you can see him schmoozing some auditorium filled with corporate types at a convention a few years hence. The faculty speaker, a school alumnus, regaled the crowd with tales of comparison between his class and this class. Even the class president, a caricature of the most popular girl on campus, played her part with the self deprecation of Judy Holiday in Born Yesterday. Equally impressive was the way the principal handled all the various accents on the multicultural mix of students’ names.
Yes, it was too long, sure it was too hot, but as an American rite of passage it was right on.
posted by the other Joan @ 5:40 PM
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