As I sit here on a wonderfully cool Saturday evening in Tallahassee, FL, a breeze works its way across a small back porch of a condo a good friend of mine owns, I have realized sometimes your hopes and dreams as a parent, in fact, can come true.
One of mine did today in the civic center where the Florida State Seminoles play basketball. But this is much more impressive and certainly more important than a small game where men and women attempt to put an orange leather ball into an orange hoop for what they hope will be fame and fortune. It’s more important this day to all of us as a society. And I was proud to be witness.
The Leon County Civic Center, named because of where the money came from I’m sure, in the shadow of the Florida State Capital, was the congenial site of the commencement exercises for The Florida State University class of 2009.
Neatly arranged on what is usually a floor of an arena generally a foundation of a basketball court or a concert venue was now firmament to about 1,000 seats that held the future on its stark gray concrete surface. Although it didn’t have all the flash and dash of the over-sold college basketball or alternative music marketing machine it was, to me, a valuable place that held tomorrow on its surface. The future. Our future.
Sitting on the same base where we hold our false idols true were other men and women who have worked their way through hours of struggle for thought and reflection for simple credit hours that would earn them their goals. Perhaps it was just a Bachelor, Masters or Doctorate Degree, but they all sat there as an intellectual community with giddy excitement as their work over the past however-many-years was recognized. And those achievements were many.
These are the men and women who hold our hope for tomorrow. And hopefully one day, we will realize they are our true idols and heroes and not someone who can dunk a ball or sell a $135 ticket to entertain us for three hours,
If we don’t realize where the true talent in this country is held we are doomed.
And why?
Simply, we aren’t paying attention.
These are the relative underpaid who still work for their passion. What they love. Why they get up in the morning.
Of course, the money is nice.
My daughter, Rachel, my first born, was among this honorable group.
The reason why she decided to join this university and why she decided to go where she’s going is another chapter or four, so I won’t bore you with those. But today, May 2, 2009 caps one of the next chapters and I’m not really sure I can relate in words how I felt this day.
But please, give me license.
I walked in to my daughter’s house she had been renting for a couple years near campus about an hour before the 9:00 a.m. start time of the commencement to get the tickets to gain entrance into this momentous moment. My friend Bobbi (known to many as The Bob) was with me and anxious to witness the event that culminated four years of effort. The Bob is a fan, too.
As I walked in, I handed Rachel a dozen garnet and gold roses and put them in vase I had bought at Target the night before. It was rather unceremonious in its delivery, but meaningful for me, as I thought the damn things would wilt in a hot car in a parking lot.
Better safe than dead.
My girl walks up, takes the flowers and gives me a big daddy hug, one of those things for which I live.
When she stepped back, she had four tassels hanging around her neck over her black graduation gown. I asked her what they signified.
She explained they were honor fraternities and she was supposed to have two more but they ran out and wanted 20 bucks for them anyway, “So forget that,” she said.
That’s my girl.
I told her I would meet her after the ceremony and was excited to see this happen.
I lied.
I was thrilled.
This was what I always knew she would search out and find. This was the culmination of all her efforts. I wanted to tell her they were mine, too. But I didn’t. It was her day. It was her chance to numb the naysayers, poke fun at those who didn’t or step ahead of those who couldn’t.
We arrived at the arena and all I could think of was my own passage 31 years before. It was a gateway for me, as it has been for anyone who has ever passed through that portal. If you have walked, you understand.
As she walked across that stage that has lately held many an alternative rock band I’m sure, the provost mispronounced the last name nicely the first time and then corrected as Rachel smartly had printed the phonetic spelling underneath the announcement. He got it right on the second attempt.
It was beautiful.
“Rachel Maureen ‘Sheahfraydo,’ ‘Shafredoh,’ Magna Cum Laude.”
Damn. It was beautiful, either way. It’s always good to stump the administration.
I have only cried a few times in my life in public before. This was the second time because of Rachel—once when she was born because I felt so small and on this day in front of 12,000 fans in attendance. I felt bigger this time.
I don’t care if I made a fool of myself either time.
I hope everyone can feel this way at least once.
To the future.