Potlatch High School Commencement Address 2020

           

          Distinguished graduates of the class of 2020 of Potlatch High School, thank you for honoring me by asking me to be your commencement speaker. And it should go without saying, but congratulations on completing the longest spring break ever recorded in the history of the United States, coming out of it with diplomas, and being more sober than even the staunchest tea-totaler would have wished. This is, by far, the most unusual graduation, topping even my own forty years ago on May 18, 1980 when the dark clouds of ash from Mt. St. Helens blotted out the sun. While you have good reason to be a little saddened by the circumstances, you have to admit that it is another one of those things that makes your class the most distinguished. And this distinguishing characteristic by which your class will be remembered was seemingly effortless (if, Marissa, you ignore the fact that you suddenly had to do everything online with little to no help, many of you like Austin—who Zoomed with us from work—are working already—because what else did you need to do, surely not homework? others of you might have been watching younger siblings while your parents were working, and some of you (Colter?), may have been fending off panic attacks). Although you may not have had much choice about not coming to school this last quarter, thank you for putting up with this mess. We have lost over 100,000 people in this country already (that’s a pretty big city for Idaho standards) and we would be losing more if it weren’t for all of our efforts to be safe and smart. We have to keep doing our part. But I don’t want to spend a bunch of time talking to you about that. Instead, I want to focus on you, your own accomplishments, the task at hand, and the love that all of us here have for you.

            You really did it and that’s what we’re all here for. Lots of people helped you get here and even if we have to distance ourselves, we’re here for you with plenty of others parked on the fringes and listening on the radio. Did you know, Connor, that the Idaho High School Activities Association, sponsored by the Idaho National Guard, awarded Potlatch High School the School of Excellence award for 1A Division I Schools this year? That has everything to do with all of you. Congratulations to all of us on that one. Our school has high participation in activities, and giving those up this spring has not been easy. And you all completed unique, interesting (and perhaps terrifying) Senior projects just in the nick of time before the state relaxed that requirement. Good job! I know you never thought you’d miss school, yet you already have been missing it, missing each other. And now some of you are already off doing things. I don’t think Lars is here because he’s ready to put out fires. Some of you are waiting to go off into basic training for the military. Others of you are set to go off to college, some, like Savanna, right here in Idaho while others are going off to places like Vegas for Tarah, Portland for Steffen and New York for Reid. And others of you are going to have to be patient, not only in deciding what you want to do, but maybe even in finding something to do. None of us are going to wake up in September to find everything like it was last February. You are going to have to help us get out of this mess the pandemic has placed upon us. That is, indeed, a daunting task. But you are ready, whether you know it or not.

            So the task at hand is commencement, that very formal word that really just means get on with it. Madison Hendrix, it was just yesterday that you were stopping by your Aunt Tammy’s while she was cutting my hair. Unbelievable. So here we are, commencing, even while, as Isaac said in his final paper, “It seems like the world has stopped turning.” Right now, we are surrounded by this feeling that we had in elementary school that everyone has “cooties” and if you step on the crack of the sidewalk you’ll break your mother’s back. Weird how stupid little kid games turn out to be the best preparation for the “real world.” Sometimes, Teegan, my little Schmidt, those best lessons are subtler than what any teacher wrote on the board. They aren’t the lessons we get A’s on that prepare us (thank God, right Jim?), they are the ones we might have even failed. But we pick ourselves up and commence, we get on with it. And, Liam, the dark glasses make you look like Joe Cool, so people are going to expect you to get on with it. It doesn’t matter that you were never good at math, that you can’t spell, that you find history boring. It doesn’t matter, Tyler, that you are just now getting your hair permed. If it weren’t so hot today, we’d all still think it was February anyway. What really does matter is that you are generous and kind, that you help others, that you do know lots of things that will get us all through this struggle. I have observed how you all preserve one another’s dignity, including mine (not that I ever become undignified), and that is a skill more valuable than you realize. Caleb, you have been a most dignified voice to make our morning announcements. I have missed that.

            One of my favorite poems is Robert Frost’s “The Road not Taken.”

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

            Of course you might be thinking that poem applies more to people my age, the ones in the “yellow wood” of life where we are looking back, but it applies to you, Desi, as well because now you are looking forward down those paths “no step has trodden black” deciding which one to take. Anneka, did you decided it would be best to not take too many classes from me because you thought I might be comparing you to your mom, your dad, or your brothers? Some of the most important decisions you will ever make in life won’t really feel like much more than a whim, yet they impact your entire life. Believe me when I say that, because many of your parents are sitting here celebrating you, looking back in time wondering what happened. Kelton, it is Saad to say, but I remember quite well your father throwing spit wads (which now, I might add, could be considered a federal crime) over the partitions in my room before walls, probably at your wrestling coach. He was certainly not ready to be thinking, “Whatever happened to my little baby that got him here right now?” Probably never once were any of you a big conscious decision for them, yet, paradoxically, you are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, decisions they ever made. And most of them are also looking at me and wondering how their own English teacher got so old and kept going long enough to teach you. If they aren’t, I sure am. At least half of you are children of my former students. Just keep swimming.

            Life has always, just as it is now, been an exploration into the unknown for all of us. We don’t know when we’re ever going to use what we’ve learned later in life, but it’s always good to have a few tools in our belt to approach the darkness. So you did the right thing finishing all your classes. We don’t even know when the most ordinary things like school, or jobs, or food, will suddenly be snatched away. When it seems overwhelmingly terrifying in the future we can respond in various ways, but it must never be an option to approach it with fear, even when we are terrified. Just stop and breathe, never give in to despair because that means the darkness has won. I mean what’s the worst thing that can happen if you take a step on that path not trodden black in leaves? You just have to find out. I remember, Bailey, when you found out how to be the bowling ball and kids in the hall were your pins. You, my friend, are courageous and I admire you greatly.

You all already know what I do to avoid frustration, fear, and discouragement: I run (and maybe yell a little bit). If I’m not sure what’s there I figure I should just run through it, around it, or over it. But Jewel, I’m not speaking in a literal sense. You still need to use caution or you might, like I did once, fall and break something. Find something that you can do to clear your head. Shoot baskets Brayden, lift weights Mikey, go flying Ty (or take me hiking on the Centennial Trail), go horseback riding, Danaira. Keep running, Anna. Madison Figgins, I think after a spell at the daycare, no matter how much you like kids, you can understand why I run. Give yourself the space to be aggressive Alyssa and get the pent-up emotions out, but not on your boyfriend, no matter how much he deserves it. No point in concussing your friends, right Dylan? Kenon, do you remember being very little and running with me and brother Kyle? I’d still run with you. Chloe, how was it that it was never you messing with my computer, making it speak when I typed the password or turning the screen view sideways? Or was it…?

            And sometimes none of that will work, yet we still have to get on with it. If, and when, Katie, you find you’ve stumbled or made a wrong choice it’s still ok. No, Kennedy, you don’t always have to persist if it doesn’t seem right. Maybe you will need to change course, stop beating your head against the wall. This is when you remember your people. Jerrod and Justin, I think your people are here. Today is one time your parents are glad to have twins so they didn’t have to send someone from the family off to the parking lot to observe. I know you all think you live in a rather dull, ordinary, nowhere town but that is just wrong. I’ve heard many call it the derogatory Potscratch. But in truth only a very few, select people live in this corner of Latah County, Idaho. We come from a uniquely historical place and we take care of each other better than anywhere else. Miranda, you know that we live in a beautiful place where the forest sweeps down to the fertile fields of the most photographed farm land in the country. Someone asked me if I was going to sing (Heidi asked me not to), and since I was too busy thinking of what to say to you, I couldn’t practice to sing the anthem with Charlee, but yeah. I mean, come on, I set it up. We are right out of a Hollywood musical.

You’ve heard of the wonders our land does possess,

It’s beautiful valleys and hills.

The majestic forests where nature abounds,

We love every nook and rill.

And here we have Idaho,

Winning her way to fame.

Silver and gold in the sunlight blaze,

And romance lies in her name.

Singing, we’re singing of you,

Ah proudly too. All our lives thru,

We’ll go singing, singing of you,

Singing of Idaho.

Someone else asked me to declare the Hunger Games open and that Tycee should offer herself as a tribute, but don’t worry we have got your back because you are ours. No tributes today. Brenna, thank you for never posing for pictures with duck lips. It’s bad enough when Kyle does it. There is nothing ordinary about Potlatch, it’s far more unique than any phony movie and this, Kyndal, is your home. However ordinary, Rachel, or however different, Jordan, you think you are, this community has become the fiber of your being and it has helped form who you are.  

            As you know, I am a man of faith, and I believe God is bigger than anything that gets in our way, especially a pesky virus. I have faith in you, class of 2020, and my and all our hopes rest in you and hope will get you a long way when you know we are here with our love. As the Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians, “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three: but the greatest of these is love.” You have already accomplished a great deal, I love you, and everyone here loves you. So the odds will ever be in your favor. Now commence living with all our faith, hope, and the most important: all of our love.