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Louise White
I'll do it for you, Mary.
Wrote this piece today. Wish so much that you could've been there last night!
Valedictory Address
Laurinburg High School
Class of 1965
Hello, dear everybody. I’m Mary Stearns, and if you think of me as Mary K., we’ve no doubt known each other since kindergarten.
I’m here before you this evening to deliver our valedictory address even though – let’s face it! – my name was obviously drawn out of a hat. Still, an honor’s an honor!
So I’m not remarkable, though the circumstances are: I’m the only valedictorian in the long and almost mythological history of Laurinburg High School not to be invited to speak to the class at graduation. The valedictorian and salutatorian aren’t even footnoted on the program. Well, golly. But I already know what I was going to say, so why not?
Of course, I can’t very well knock down Mr. Gibson, Mr. Davis, our cutie-pie mascots, and possibly my own mother to get to the podium, so I’m resorting to Plan B. This address, if I ever finish typing it, and I admit that I should’ve taken Typing I and even Typing II, will be sealed in a time capsule to be opened, say, fifty-eight years from now, say on Sandra’s and Ricky’s shared birthday, in a Masonic Lodge far from the Honey Cone, the shag, and all things teenagerish.
Ahem.
Mr. Superintendent, Mr. Davis, teachers, coaches, classmates, and friends just about since my birth, thank you for this remarkable opportunity to look into the distant future and predict how we’ll be when at least some of the dust settles. Our lives thus far have been largely devoid of angst, though we left childhood mostly behind on November 22, two years ago. And even though we’ll be traveling the same hills and valleys that all humans have endured for hundreds of thousands of years, there will be some gorgeous plateaus that will help us forget, at least temporarily, the unimaginable miseries that will surely sniff us out regardless of where or how cleverly we attempt to hide.
On the magical September night when you open this message, you’ll all be surprised and delighted to realize that the good things have stayed with us, according to my Ouija board. There are no lifetime curmudgeons among us! Each of us is still as cute as a button! Being ancient has not made us decrepit! We can still fit into our kilts! And we finally know stuff!
At eighteen I already don’t remember our class motto – “Today we follow; tomorrow we lead,” maybe? – or who created it, but by 2023 we’ll be far more interested in sharing what we’ve lived than in hoping someone will follow our game plan to the letter. Our jocks will have become lawyers, doctors, real estate tycoons, published authors, and even a famous golfer. (Trust me!). Our cheerleaders and club secretaries will have become university professors, administrators, and club presidents. I will no longer have to stand in the middle of the back row of our class pictures because I will no longer be tall. Who can believe it?
Even the teachers who forced us to memorize just about everything, including, for me, the Manhattan telephone directory, will have evolved, in our new-found wisdom, into icons of all that was right about our childhoods, our youth, and our character. We rowdy little kids will have become good guys. Can’t beat that! (Oh, but the tall-tale-tellers will still be telling tall tales. Not everything changes!)
For about five minutes a couple of days ago, I was ranting, and probably raving as well, about why I should be singled out as the only LHS valedictorian ever not to be awarded a speaking role. But then the light dawned: a speech is good for going into one ear and out the other, but a time capsule is good for fifty-eight years!
Let us all now rise together and hum “Pomp and Circumstance.” Not a catchy tune, exactly, but we have earned it
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