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Let commencements commence
(by Walt Brown - May 07, 2008)
We are fast approaching the season where graduation speakers will remind us that “commencement” is not an end, but a beginning. (Try telling the graduates they have to start over.)
The recent trend in commencement(s), however, represents a change from the past. Years ago, we learned what, for example, the class of 2008 had achieved. Fair enough. Now we are told of the technological changes that happened around them, and in part because of them, by the sociologists who think it is important to suggest that the Class of 2008 was the cutting edge group of graduates that removed two traditional landmarks from the American pageant: the omnipresent cell phone has caused or is causing the disappearance of the “pay phone,” and the “texting” feature of the phone, plus the standard Internet, have all but obliterated the large red and blue mailboxes that used to stand on the corners of many streets.
Maybe the sociologists are correct, and I’m sure there will be other barometers that will measure the Class of 2008. I’d like to add some of my own, and be reasonably certain that the sociologists cannot contradict my assertions about the Class of 2008.
Be they college grads or local high school students (with the real focus on the latter), it’s fair to say that this year’s graduates “did not” or “have never”:
… watched a pyramid under construction
… used an abacus
… picked up a phone and heard a voice say “number, please”
… used a button that said “choke” to get the car started
… brought home a cake of ice to keep food cool in the “ice box”
… had to change a dime into two nickels to use the soda machine
… mailed any item to any place, using a three-cent stamp
… watched a black and white television that only got seven channels, and featured oddities like an “on/off” switch and a do-it-yourself channel nob, and all of it connected to rabbit ears
… rode their bicycle to high school
… used a human-powered lawnmower
… bought two days’ worth of candy with $1 and getting change; among the selections were “Chuckles,” “Necco wafers,” “Nick’l Nips,” and Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy.
… experienced global cooling
… took soda bottles back to get the deposit
… saw a “fender” OR “poodle” skirt
… put baseball cards in the spokes of the bicycle
… and finally, never worried or wondered curiously about the results when they said that famous phrase, “fill ‘er up.”
Personally, I’d rather know the things that the Class of 2008 did. As a former correspondent who covered
Woodcliff
Lake , River Vale, Westwood, and Pascack Valley Regional at one time or another, I think the list of their accomplishments would be much more exciting.
Particularly when I’ll have to explain “Nick’l Nips” to readers.
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