Traditionally a speaker at a commencement address attempts to ingratiate him or herself with the audience as early as possible in their speech. Two years ago I had the distinct honor to speak to the class of 2004 on their graduation day. They had not asked me, mind you, and for that sleight may they be all consigned to Hades after crossing the River Styx. Their anointed one, Mr. Wilson Flight of the Science Department, was unable to deliver his worthy speech because he had tried to cut off his thumb with a power saw just a couple of days before the event - perhaps he just could not handle the pressure or maybe it was just some strange Science Department ritual. We’ll never know. So there I was presenting his recollections of countless trips he had taken with students to God forsaken places all over the northern hemisphere including Iceland and Acton I think - living in tents, eating out of tins of food, sleeping in or on mosquito nets, listening to coyotes stalk their prey - really dreadful experiences - give me a hotel like the Ritz Carleton any time - clean sheets, nice beds , hot showers. As I read his speech I couldn’t help reflecting upon my only experience in 34 years similar to his as I chaperoned a group of CC students and their parents to the Soviet Union in April 1983. Ah yes, Fond memories, indeed. So traumatized was I by that touching expedition that I swore that I wouldn’t chaperone a group of CC students to cross a street.

So I will not ingratiate myself with you in that fashion. Instead let me try this - I can identify with every significant Concord-Carlisle person in attendance at this ceremony. You students think this day is all about you but everyone else here today knows better.

Let me speak to the Grandparents in the audience - soon I will be one of you. My daughter, Anne, a 1996 graduate of Concord-Carlisle, is expecting her first child and our first grand child in August. Be honest o sage elders of distinction - weren’t you just a little shocked 17 or 18 years ago when your son or daughter, the parents of these young people, announced they were going to have a child. How could that be, asked you. I am not old enough to be a grandparent, my child is not old enough to parent another. I remember when they couldn’t tie their own shoes, pull up their own pants and now they are going to have a child. Impossible. Something was very wrong here, wasn’t it? And yet here we are 17-18 years later and you celebrate their miracles of creation on this glorious day.

For all you parents in the audience - I am like you the father of Concord-Carlisle graduates - 2 in fact - Anne and Patrick, 1996 and 1997 respectively. What a ride it has been? It takes a village to raise a child - what nonsense - you and you alone were there in the emergency room with soccer or lacrosse injuries, you were the chauffeurs to innumerable music practices, you were the ear when the adolescent complaints poured in over unfair teachers, unkind friends or failed romances. And yet the triumphs have been sweet, haven’t they? They do grow up, they are sturdy young men and women of perseverance, grit, determination, compassion and goodness.

Now how about my identification with you students, the great class of 2006? What in God’s name do I have in common with you? You don’t remember where you were when JFK was killed. I do. You don’t remember the Iranian hostage crisis. I do. You don’t even remember the Rolling Stones when they had teeth of their own. I do. Yet I feel closest to you because like you my days are numbered at CCHS. Like you I hear the refrain in my head “Don’t let the door hit you in the … rear end as you go out.”

And yet how will CCHS survive without you, without me, without us? Take it from me, sadly it will.

So let us glory in this day while we have it. You are the culmination of many generations of your ancestors’ dreams. Most of us have people in their family who 300 years ago, 200 years ago, 100 years ago, 5 years ago made the sometimes unwilling, sometimes desperate yet always fateful, always courageous decision to leave their homeland, gamble everything and start anew. Others of you know that your ancestors came in chains, terrified beyond measure at the prospect of their future. Yet they survived, they ultimately triumphed and you are the personification of that survival and triumph. Today is the public affirmation of your and their glory.

You are at this moment the completion of this chapter of their story. In a very real sense you are why they came here or why they chose to overcome all odds against their survival. Don’t trivialize that sacrifice by leading a mediocre life. Those of you who have studied with me have heard the mantra - someone is always watching, someone is always evaluating, someone is always judging the quality of your contribution to your country, your community, your work, and your family. In the end you will have no excuses for a life poorly led, you have no excuses - not one of you. You have been the product of greatness.

So today is a celebration of the past but of course of your recent accomplishments at CCHS as the great class of 2006.

Your teachers, coaches and advisors have seen greatness among you - how could we identify it? We have seen your older brothers and sisters perform in awe-inspiring ways. And who are your brothers and sisters? Every person who has ever graduated from Concord-Carlisle High School. You are linked to them all in a mysterious, I dare say , in a mystical way. And you the class of 2006 have set an inspiring standard by which future generations of Concord-Carlislians will be judged. Why inspiring? There are among you people of such goodness and character that we cannot help but be better for our association with you - there have been students battling illness or disability that still to the best of their ability engaged their studies with energy and enthusiasm and we are all better for their example. There were students among you who got up at ungodly hours to trek out to CCHS to get a Concord- Carlisle education and their perseverance, their diligence, their good humor were an inspiration for us. There have been students dealing with family crises and sadness and yet there was no pouting but a dogged determination to carry on. It has been noticed, it has been admired - you have made us all better.

Soon the vast majority of you will go on to college - you in every single instance are among the most qualified students in the school you attend. Why? Because you had a Concord-Carlisle education, you were in the presence of many of these marvelous men and women, teachers and administrators to my left. You will hear your peers excusing themselves from taking responsibility for their inappropriate behavior by saying they are “finding themselves.” I would offer the Cleary addendum to this “Find yourselves and get A’s while you are looking.” No excuses - too many people have worked too hard to get you to this place. It is unacceptable to let them down. It is unacceptable to let yourselves down.

I have loved teaching the class of 2006. It really hit me the day this spring when I came out of a Russian history class that was particularly delightful, at least for me. A senior came up to me and apologized for not being in class - something about a doctor’s appointment. How was class? The senior knows enough not to ask the 9th or 10th grader’s question when they miss class - you remember the one - “Mr. Cleary, I was absent yesterday, did we do anything?” The answer to which is “No, as soon as I saw you weren’t here we decided we couldn’t go on and so sat quietly awaiting your return.” Back to our senior “How was class?” I said sincerely it was great and that I was really touched that here it was early May and the seniors still led the discussions almost to the exclusion of the juniors. That is not how it is traditionally done - by April and the last of the college acceptances the seniors begin to disappear, not physically mind you but mentally. One sees the 1000 yard stare, the drool from the side of the mouth, the sound of the head hitting a desk top. Yet not this year - the senior’s response was “We’ve talked about it, we want to goof off, mail it in but we don’t want to disappoint teachers.”

It really was a magical moment - he got it, his classmates got it. If the teacher is sincerely enthusiastic about their subject matter, the students of CCHS have always suspended judgment about the worth or relevance of the topic to their lives and engaged the material because there was a personal bond between us. No more, no less.

CCHS has been a repository of dreams and a temple of hopes for teachers and students alike. Something sacred takes place in those buildings every day. You and I though physically absent in the years to come will be part of CCHS’s story for ever more. Those corridors, those classrooms have known our laughter and our voices for years - we will not be forgotten. Those corridors and classrooms will reverberate with the memory of your and my laughter and our voices.

I do not know what to tell you about the future - you are living through momentous times. In 1995 I was driving through Dover
with my oldest son and he said that he was sorry he missed the 60’s because his times seemed so boring. I heard myself respond - “Boring is good let it stay boring forever - only the music was any good in the 60’s. Assassinations, cities burning, war - you didn’t miss a thing - I wouldn’t go back if I could.” But since 2001 we are a different people in a different world. You are a generation that will have to launch new ideas, create different and novel solutions to problems that are analogous to past generations’ concerns but only analogous. And you will do it. When I read an early draft of this speech to my wife she said it was missing something - what is your Favorite quotation of all time? Maybe that will bring it to completion. As ever she was right - At your age I was taken with the possibilities that Robert Kennedy offered to us. I am a bit older now and have known my share of disappointment with hero worship but words have power, they strike a chord, they touch something in our souls.

This still does.-
In a speech in South Africa, a nation suffering from the evil of apartheid, Robert Kennedy offered the following idea: Each time a person stands up for AN IDEAL, OR ACTS TO IMPROVE THE LOT OF OTHERS, OR STRIKES OUT AGAINST INJUSTICE, THAT PERSON SENDS FORTH A TINY RIPPLE OF HOPE AND CROSSING each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Now I am not asking you to consider running for the Presidency of the United States in order to satisfy Kennedy’s call to justice, though there may be among you right now one who is harboring such ambitions. But this call to hope can be accomplished in one’s community, in one’s work space , in one’s home. It does not have to be grandiose and dramatic - it is found in the acts of kindness many of you performed each day for family members, for those who could not take care of themselves, for each other over the last 4 years. Kindness begets kindness, goodness multiplies exponentially - we have only one go at this life - how do you want to be remembered - I would hope as someone who built something lasting and of great beauty in the midst of a life filled with love and kindness. That is what it ultimately all comes down to. If you had not done that good deed where would that person have been, what would that person not have accomplished and how would your life have been diminished knowing that you could have done something but looked the other way.

Have wonderful lives, have worthy lives, you have brought much joy to the Concord-Carlisle community, past and present and especially to me. For that I thank you - God bless.