Graduation

This is a true story, or at least based on one,

My college graduation was held outside, on a pretty well-cut lawn with trees and fine old buildings around it, with lots of chairs set out in a row for us graduates to sit on while we listened to some speeches and then got our diplomas, one at a time. We sat there with our caps and gowns on, our gowns covering everything we wore, whatever we wore, and whatever we brought to consume to get us through the hour or beyond. Some students brought bottles of something. Others brought something to smoke. Some of the girls actually brought little gifts to give to their friends. We were all a little self-conscious about what we had hiding under our gowns.

I myself had brought nothing, but I'd decided to wear some nice clothes because of some party we were to have involving parents, perhaps, or teachers. My nice clothes were somewhat uncomfortable and I definitely wasn't used to wearing them, though it was a nice day and I wasn't too hot as happens sometimes at some graduations. I remember especially detesting my shoes, and wondering if I could simply take them off, and accept my diploma barefoot. What would people say? They would assume I was making some kind of statement, but really my statement was that dress shoes are too uncomfortable to hang around in on a Saturday afternoon.

I had worked hard for that diploma and in fact it had taken me ten years; that's why I was so much more comfortable in work shoes or no shoes at all. I hadn't wasted six years; I simply didn't do the work until I knew that's what I'd wanted. During college I'd worked in the dishroom, and gotten various other jobs to raise money. Among them was reading textbooks for this blind guy who was somewhat unpleasant but who, I figured, deserved to graduate as much as the rest of us. One of my jobs was sorting through the books of this voluminous library of an old professor who had died, and cataloguing the books. But mostly it was dishroom, dishroom, dishroom. Steam, dirty plates, playing spoons with the college silver. An endless schedule of turning dirty plates into steamy, clean, ready to use, plates on a rolling tray - because this was therapeutic, I was quite healed by graduation; I had washed everyone's dishes several times. And I was quite good at playing spoons on college silver.

So I didn't mind congratulating myself sharing whatever people had hidden under their gowns on that Saturday afternoon, listening to the speeches. I fact I was feeling mildly pleasant and enjoying myself, though I couldn't help thinking about my high school graduation, which had been held in the gym of my high school, which was absolute torture because the gym smelled like all gyms only worse, and again we were dressed in full outfits plus cap and gown thus forced to be uncomfortable on uncomfortable bleachers in the heat with a rancid smell everywhere. The gym was especially torture for me, because as a junior I had fallen in with a newsletter crowd, which had uncovered a kickback scandal involving a gym teacher, who had then tortured in gym class mercilessly. But I had endured, and graduated, needing to pass PE of course, while he had fallen by the wayside, guilty of corruption.

So, if you wonder why it took ten years to get where I was, or why I needed all that steam healing treatment, that's part of the story, but in any case I'd made it, I was here, and it was a beautiful day. And to bring me out of my reminiscing, of old times, bad times, long journey, all that, they called the name of the blind guy, and up he went, to the stage, to receive his diploma. And a wide, genuine, heartfelt cheer came up from the crowd, including me, because, although he was generally considered an unpleasant guy, there was no doubt that he'd worked hard to get where he was, harder even than I'd worked. It hadn't been easy for him to rely on others so much, even now, even getting onto the stage, outdoors, where roots and branches can trip you at every turn. And it turned out that I wasn't the only one who had pitched in to help him.

It was a fancy, prideful college, with tablecloths and fine silver and dinner served every night, that made me play spoons and peek out from a dishroom with a loud dishwasher in it. But it had made it possible for me, a poor guy, to get through it, and it had made it possible for him, too. And its near-universal spirit of generosity extended to both me and him and put us on that stage on that day. So, at that moment I had to lean back in my chair, appreciate the beauty of the spring day, as we congratulated ourselves on a job well done.