145. American Ideals

            “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Those are the words that were set forth on July 4, 1776 as a declaration of independence from Great Britain and an established set of ideals for the thirteen British colonies of North America. They were posted everywhere for the new Americans to see, and they were, in fact, a lofty set of ideals for humanity to aspire toward. The truth is that we hardly ever come close to those aspirations, but we must keep trying.

            It is self-evident that from the very beginning we were lacking in attaining these ideals. The words “all men” is very sexist, but typically now we interpret it as all humanity. It is also a huge irony that several of the men who signed the document were slave owners. And we have grappled with those problems from the inception of that document. “All men” means what? Who are men? Our problem is the interpretation of the word men. Is men synonymous with humanity? Our sisters would say yes, yet we have tried for centuries to say it is not, but it is simply males. Apparently, the originators thought only of white males because they continued to enslave their black brethren. They also set forth to take lands from the native Americans because they were brown, often illiterate, and therefore less than “men.”

            And what about the cognitively impaired? Is someone who can’t verbally communicate with others anymore exalted than a beast? Should people confined to wheelchairs really be allowed to enter buildings? Should these degenerate creatures be allowed to procreate? You may begin to see a pattern here that shows how we infringe upon the liberty of all men. But we did achieve a milestone thirty years ago in regard to Americans with disabilities and said yes to the questions above with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. That’s not very long ago.

            I think it’s clear that all men will not agree on what liberties or pursuits of happiness others can engage in. I think it is still a wonderful ideal that we must continue to grapple with. I think we should evaluate our progress as a nation every year at this time. I believe we have to engage in the discussion through legal avenues, through peaceful protests when we believe our ideals are not being adequately purposed. We must not shut down the conversation, but keep the dialogue open. I believe that that is our liberty and our pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness is a journey and it is our unalienable right. We cannot shut down that pursuit because we might disagree with someone. We can’t keep saying things like “the Bible says it so that’s the way it is,” because clearly how one person interprets the Bible can be quite different from another person. And clearly the Bible isn’t a starting point because not all are Christian or Jewish. We have to continue on our path of seeking “liberty and justice for all,” because we believe “all men are created equal.”

            For two hundred and forty-four years we have engaged in this debate. From the inception of our country we have gradually allowed others into the conversation and only for one hundred years have we fully included women in this debate. We have sought to open voices and we have sought to shut them down. We have sought to hear others voices and other times we have sought to consider them cacophony. Every single human being has done these things so that we bandy the shuttlecock back and forth. I am thankful for these ideals. I am not ready to quit pursuing my happiness and that of my brothers and sisters because I hold these truths, while complicated, to be self-evident: All are created equal.

144. Dark History

            There is no doubt that as a country we have a very dark history. Colonialism was based in exploitation or escape from that very thing and those evils are our ancestry. Our people either came with the goal of exploiting a new land, escaping terrible persecutions with no place left to go, being forced here in chains and irons, or having all of that terror come to the land of their birth. All that heaviness increased as time went on. Resentment from slaves clashed with already brewing resentment of colonists and natives driven by greed, fear, or both. The idyllic Pilgrim Thanksgiving feast was probably nothing close to the pageantry of a grade school reenactment.

            All of that seething darkness of humanity is still with us, but the glimmering light of hope, redemption, and prosperity is also still with us. Out of the darkness of oppression these fearless groups of people left their distant shores to come live on what they saw as a vast wilderness only to believe they somehow had individual rights to claim it as their own and to subdue it to their own desires. Some held beliefs of religious liberty and purpose but they completely overstepped their bounds by refusing to understand the new people they encountered, labeling them as savage with all the heaviness of that word merely because they were different. It was ignorance and stubborn indifference to the great similarities that ALL human beings share. Not two hundred years into all this greed and ignorance that Britain had staked claim to, the colonists declared themselves free of the laws and taxes that Britain was imposing on them, stating that “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” What beautiful words to declare, yet how ironic that the very men who penned and conceived them were, in fact, slave owners. From the inception of the discovery of these new continents by Europeans, human darkness and human hope have striven to create better things. I believe the light is overcoming the darkness.

            The problem is that we are still struggling. We are okay with things being off kilter as long as we and those around us are safe. That’s where we fall short of our pledge for liberty and justice for ALL. It would be wrong to say that we don’t want and aspire to that goal, but it is also wrong to say that we really work for it. Contentment has bred hypocrisy amongst us and we don’t help ourselves by shaping our narrative in a way that ignores, even protects, the ugly darkness that we all carry.

            The dark history of the United States is the dark history of the world. We must grapple with that history and stop wallowing in individual contentment to achieve the ideals that we have been aspiring to for over four hundred years. Only if we really believe that black and brown lives matter can we begin to understand that glib, content, sweeping-under-the-rug-all-our-dirt idea of all lives mattering. We cannot abandon our history, but we must cling to the very hope that has brought us here across stormy seas through a revolution and civil war to this place we are now. I am proud of our ideals and I want to continue to work to achieve them. It is out of these ashes that we will rise. I will not give up on the American dream.

143. Friendships

            There’s certainly nothing uniquely American about friendship, but it is something I am extremely grateful for at every juncture in my life. Right now, during quarantine, it is especially important for all of us to maintain our friendships. My main point of this blog is to enumerate the good things about America and living in America, and there is, by far, no better aspect to life anywhere than friendship. So why not focus on friendship as something I am grateful for in America? I will say this about myself: I am someone who will stay a friend always. I don’t always choose friends based on any particularity beyond the ability to unite over some commonality. It may be something as mundane as hair color or the fact that we both know someone and are friends with that person. Of course, the deep friendships come from shared experiences. I have made hundreds of friends based upon the fact that I am a teacher. I can’t have a kid in my class for a year or more and learn so much about them that I won’t befriend them. Yes, of course we grow older and apart by distance, but I seldom forget the bonds we have made. My best friends are also other teachers. Those are people in whom I can confide my struggles and hopes about a plethora of students and how to work with them and their backgrounds, whether we share those students or not.

            I make many friends out of curiosity—I see someone in church that I’ve never seen before and I introduce myself and find out as much as I can about them. I strike up a conversation with someone I see often at the grocery store, perhaps a clerk or a box boy, and gradually we get to know each other. Friendships often develop gradually through time but sometimes they form almost instantaneously. I cherish both formations and the bonds they create.

            Reading books is a way I often develop friendships, and I don’t mean the imaginary ones with the characters. I mean the friendships that are formed when you meet someone who also likes the same books you do. If you both like the book there must be something about the other person that you will gravitate toward because of that shared interest.

            I have also made plenty of friends because of the sports I participate in. I have running buddies, hiking buddies, and biking buddies. I love those people just because we have shared so much in not only the activities, but the deep conversations that evolve out of shared effort, shared scenery, and shared proximity. It has always been my belief that you can’t not be friends with people who work together with you.

            And food brings people together. Not only the breaking of bread together, but the act of cooking together. Learn what people like to eat and make it together if you can, or have them teach you how to make it. The stories that come from food and the associations will knit your bond so that you will remember them whenever you eat that food. Their memories will integrate with your memories and you will form a friendship around something as simple as a specific type of chees on a specific sandwich or a special way of putting clotted cream on a scone at that specific tea shop in that very unique seaside town.

            And sometimes friendships develop through very ugly situations that someone helps you with or that you help them with, especially if you were at first in opposition to one another. Trauma is eased through shared experiences and the ability to help each other through it. And never forget to reach out to those people who you know will help you to heal, maybe just by their smile and their knowledge of you. Now is the time to strengthen and create those friendships. There is nothing more wonderful than our shared humanity. I cherish it, and am grateful for it.

142. Yellowstone Falls

            There isn’t a whole lot of traveling going on yet because, except for some slight openings most of us are still sheltering in place as much as possible. Right now, the country—indeed, the world—is enraged over the very public death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis for a petty offense that he probably didn’t even commit. Black Americans continue to be targeted by police and anti-black protocol seems to be very much a part of American policing. If we believe in justice for all, then why does this continue? I can’t answer that, but I believe I must do my part to stop it. On this platform I can only speak to the problem and hint at some small solutions.

            There is a place I would travel to right now if I weren’t sheltering in place that would bring a sense of cleansing. I’m sorry if that seems like a corny transition go get me back to speaking about my gratitude for things American, but I do believe waterfalls are cleansing and I’ve been writing about them for weeks now. And I know there are plenty more wonderful waterfalls in this country than I will get to, so if you can, visit one and use it to meditate. The waterfall I am thinking of right now is Yellowstone Falls in Yellowstone National Park.

            I will say this about all the waterfalls I’ve mentioned—they don’t suffer fools or foolish behavior. Their beauty and their natural force are destructive without consideration of humanity or any merit we might place upon ourselves. People frequently die at waterfalls because they don’t respect the force, the height or the reality of those falls or their indifference to our very existence. Yellowstone Falls is beautifully indifferent to all of that, so trying to get closer to get a great photo is not a good idea. The las time I visited just a few days after I was there a woman did that very thing and fell down the cliffs over 500 feet to her death as her family watched in horror. Stepping beyond the humanly established boundaries that remind us to respect the falls is never a good idea. For me that just adds to the respect and awe that I treat such falls. I know you can’t get anywhere near the falls, though there are many places to see them from different angles. You won’t be alone when you go to these falls because they are in Yellowstone and Yellowstone in the summer gets visitors from all over the country (I’ve counted license plates from all fifty states there) and the world. It is the world’s first national park, so that’s not a surprise.

            I love these falls because they exist, they rush over a colorful place of yellow rock in a surrounding of mountain splendor. I’m also very proud of the fact that they represent the region of the country where I live. I suppose that’s true of every waterfall I’ve described so far. They all demonstrate the power in the earth that is much stronger than we are. That, in itself, is beautiful. I love humanity, but we are a prideful species that has a great deal of intelligence but it is still no match for the innate power of the universe that can in one small blink, wipe us from existence. So, if we continue to ignore our humanity and its beauty to our detriment, we can simply be washed away by the power of a waterfall. Yellowstone Falls is just one of those falls and I am grateful it is there to serve as a place of reverence for that which is greater than me, greater than us. Because of that, I believe we need to respect each other and ourselves, recognizing the gift we have in being here right now. Yellowstone Falls reminds me of just that and I am grateful for it.

141. Upper and Lower Mesa Falls, Idaho

            Growing up in a canyon on a river always makes a fascination with water, how it works, how it gives and takes life, how it flows. That is my fascination. I think water is beautiful in all of its forms and I’m quite thankful for it. Waterfalls are definitely a part of that fascination and I’ve been going on about them for a while.

            Another waterfall, or set of them really, that I like in Idaho is Upper and Lower Mesa Falls on the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River in that eastern part of the state right up against Montana and Wyoming. It’s in the Island Park Caldera—or coming out of that caldera—in the Yellowstone ecosystem. You would think everyone would know about these falls, but really, they haven’t gained a lot of fame. To be honest, I think most people are surprised Yellowstone is even in Idaho, or people who have driven into Yellowstone somehow think that they have therefore been to Idaho. It doesn’t matter, the falls are not in Yellowstone Park at all and because Yellowstone access in Idaho is by foot only, Island Park doesn’t really get a lot of tourists except from the local area of southwest Montana and eastern Idaho and a few from Wyoming. And if you look at it that way, those people aren’t really tourists but residents enjoying the beauty of their own back yard. And the area is beautiful. It isn’t the desert of the high plains of eastern Idaho and Wyoming, but the forested beauty of the northern Rockies. It’s a fly fisherman’s paradise. This area is where the head waters of the Henry’s Fork begin and flow down out of this beautiful caldera into the main Snake River that flows out of the snowy peaks of Yellowstone and Teton National Parks joining together to make its way through southern Idaho.

            Mesa Falls, both upper and lower, is a beautiful waterfall from a fairly large river that crashes over the typical volcanic basalt of the volcanic Pacific Northwest, but it is surrounded by a verdant splendor of forest. I’ve only been in the summer so I think of it as a cool oasis from the heat that even at that high elevation seems to accompany Idaho summers. It’s beautiful. The calming rush of waters drowns out the cacophony of normal life and transports you to another world where you feel no need to do anything but exist and admire the beauty of that existence. For me, what made it even better was that no one else was there. I had the entire place to myself. It’s quite a distance from where I now live, so I haven’t been back in nearly thirty years, so I probably wouldn’t find it to be so isolated now, though I still doubt that it is ever teeming with tourists. I would like to get back there a time or two just to enjoy the slight mist, the green calm, and the crashing sounds that, in spite of their seeming violence, bring calm.

            As Norman Mclean said, and I concur, “I am haunted by waters.” Mesa Falls in eastern Idaho is one of those haunting places. And even though I haven’t been there in years, it’s continued existence gives me pause in such a crazy time of disease to be thankful that such beauty exists. That thought eclipses all the confusion of quarantines and crowded hospitals and terrifying stories of lonely deaths. So, while I may not be able to just hop in the car and take a ten hour drive southeast of here, I can still know such beauty exists and be satisfied that I have experienced it and maybe I will get to again someday.

140. Shoshone Falls

            One place that I haven’t been to for several years that is in Idaho is Shoshone Falls. That is the waterfall that gets quite a bit of attention in our state and it is quite beautiful when the water is pouring over it at full force, which it is at this time of year. The falls get the attention largely because of its proximity to the city of Twin Falls and Interstate 84. This is the time to see it. Later in the summer it can be quite disappointing because it seems to be nothing but a little trickle forming some wet rocks. This late summer trickle is due to the fact that the Snake River is heavily utilized for irrigation purposes in the desert of southern Idaho’s farming landscape and for hydroelectric purposes with several dams on the Columbia/Snake River drainages. Some water falls in the Snake and Columbia river systems such as American Falls and Celilo Falls are completely submerged under reservoirs and have been for nearly one hundred years. However, Shoshone Falls is still completely open and when the water is high it is, indeed, a magnificent waterfall on a large river very famous in the West. They call Shoshone Falls the Niagara of the West, and it is, in fact, a higher waterfall than Niagara but it is a much narrower falls so the rushing drop of the river creates an immense spray with seemingly permanent rainbows in the air.

            When you go to Shoshone Falls you may find, at least when the water is at full force, a lineup of cars waiting to get into the park. It is a state park so you will have to pay an entry fee. When you actually get in you will find parking and enough room to not feel hemmed in by crowds. At this time of year when the water is flowing you will get wet from the spray. You will get soaked from the spray. You will see many people dressed fully in rain gear when there is not a cloud in the sky. But now, I see, I’ve fallen into the tone of a travel narrative and that’s not at all what I want to express here. Instead, I want to express my gratitude for this particular waterfall. I am an Idaho boy, so who would think I could ever be alienated, or at least feel that way, in my own state? But really there are three very distinct sections in Idaho and you can feel pretty alienated in any one of them if you are from another section. The Magic Valley, where Shoshone Falls crashed down, is part of the Snake River Plain of Southern Idaho and I’m from the land of trees in the North, not the desert of the Snake River Plain. But Shoshone Falls is the oasis in the desert, the water of the river that is a unifying force of all of Idaho. It is a place where I have gone to just get drenched and feel the rainy June of Priest Lake, to feel the rainbow, rainbow, rainbow of being at home soaking wet in a dry land. The waters of the Snake River are the life blood of Idaho, and, like I said, I am an Idaho boy. That sage brush on the flat, seemingly endless Snake River Plain can make a person from the mountains and North Idaho feel alienated and alone but then the beauty and the rainbow showers of Shoshone Falls come flowing out of all those mountains and wash over you in a splendid spray that completely ignores—no,  defies—heat and sage brush and relentless sun, bringing me that realization of life that is so vital no matter where we are. And that’s where the magic of that Magic Valley cleanses me of all the dusty thoughts of barrenness to remind me of my own living, my own vitality, and it refreshes me, cleanses me (yes, the grimy Snake cleanses me) and turns a shriveled-up raisin back into a grape. Dem dry bones hear the word of the lord. Glory be to the father.

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.