Seniors, enjoy each other while you can

For you who are desperate for something---anything!---to read, here is my column appearing in today's Custer Chronicle:

How time flies! The 53 young men and women who will graduate from Custer High School on Saturday afternoon were only a semester into their high school careers when I showed up at the Chronicle in January 2005. When I left last April, they were within a month of having only one year of high school left.
Now it's down to three days until the strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" signal their entrance into the armory and their exit into the real world.
The other day, as my best friend through grade school, high school and college years underwent sudden double bypass surgery at a hospital in Minnesota, I daydreamed over my third, fourth and fifth cups of morning coffee about my own high school class, graduation itself, all that has befallen us in the 52 years since, and our fragile mortality.
There were 31 of us, the largest class ever to graduate from Onida High School up to that time. Only five have passed away, a rather surprising fact in itself since we all are now in the 69-72 age range. And of the 27 who were alive at the time of our 50-year reunion in 2006, 19 were able to attend. I remarked that night that that, too, is a rather amazing statistic. I declared it to be proof that we '56ers care more about each other now than we did then!
I recall little about my own graduation ceremony except that the fire siren just across the alley from the city auditorium went off during my salutatory speech and the fact that somebody decided to bring in more benches from downstairs after the ceremony started. That, too, occurred during my speech. Just as well. In those days we had to memorize canned orations from the bottom drawer of Supt. Stockdale's desk, and I was scared to death. Preparing for that speech ruined my final month of high school.
All I can remember of college graduation in 1960 is that, due to alphabetical order, "Kirk" and "Knox" came next to each other, and Jim, the guy with whom I roomed for two years, and I got to march out of the Huron College gym together.
Much more memorable than my own graduations are those of my four kids, all of whom graduated from Riggs High School in Pierre. There commencement takes place outdoors on the lush green turf of Hollister Field. The green gowns and the blue sky and the Capitol dome looming over the field and the sight of the senior class parading down the hill from the middle school gym to commencement are all vivid images in my mind.
Of course an outdoor graduation depends for its very existence on the weather. During one stretch in the '90s we went four straight years with an indoor graduation in the Riggs gym, which cuts the attendance at least in half. My girls and their 1997 classmates were part of one class forced to graduate in the hot, steamy gym. But occasionally a Pierre senior class is blessed with a perfect sunny day with no wind. Not often, but occasionally!
The two high school graduations which are still most alive in my memory are the two for which I was invited to be the commencement speaker at Sully Buttes (that's the reorganized school of which Onida became part). A year after leaving teaching in 1978, the Sully Buttes Class of 1979 invited me back as their speaker. Later in 1991, while I was the local newspaper publisher in Onida, that year's class invited me, too.
The latter group of seniors, through their class president, told me they wanted it to be a memorable graduation speech.
"Then why are you asking me!" I exclaimed to her, but since it was March and graduation was still two months away, I agreed to accept her invitation. Then I spent April and May worrying about it.
Not to fear. I think we pulled it off despite the fact I had to follow a pair of outstanding student speakers, Kory Davis and Kelly Mikkelsen.
After imparting 20 minutes or so of words of wisdom, both my own and those of people I quoted, I pointed out to the Class of 1991 that the next few minutes would be the last time they all would ever be together in the same place again. I knew that to be true because there were a couple of my own classmates that I never saw again after graduation in 1956.
If any of you 2008 CHS grads are reading this and following my train of thought, you should know that Saturday afternoon will be the last time you all are together. And there are some of your classmates whose faces you will never ever see again.
So, back then in May 1991, as I stood at the podium in the SBHS gym in Onida, I instructed the 60-some graduates to play along with me, and I advised the crowd of a thousand people that I no longer was talking to them. It was just between the graduates and me.
At my direction the two front rows of seniors on each side of the center aisle turned around and faced the second row. Then I asked them to hold hands. The kids on the ends of the rows reached across to their counterparts so that the Class of 1991 was one continuous circle, held together as one by the adrenalin cursing through their bodies and, in some cases, the tears as they looked into each other's eyes.
My instructions from the podium were these: "As I slowly recite the name of each and every graduate individually, I ask you to think for 10 seconds or so solely about that person---what he or she contributed to the class, what he or she meant to you, what you will remember about that classmate."
It took nearly 10 minutes to get through the list, but the kids stood there, part of one circle of classmates never to share a moment together again. The gym of more than a thousand was utterly silent the whole time except for a sniffle or two and the sound of a nose being blown. Even the bawling infants and the preschoolers tearing around at the back of the gym kept quiet. Finally we were finished. The seniors broke from their circle, resumed face-forward position and prepared to receive their diplomas.
My point then is echoed by the words of country singer Tim McGraw: "We all take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everywhere."
So, to the CHS seniors of '08, go your own way, do your own thing, but this weekend, look around you and soak in all about those with whom you have experienced high school and growing-up years in Custer. There are some among them whom you will never see again.
Best wishes to each of this year's graduates! As Dr. Seuss wrote, "You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own and you know what you know, and you are the one who'll decide where to go."

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It's 'with the crowd,' not 'to': This is your English language cop, reporting for duty. No, I have given up ranting about incorrect personal pronouns. It's not just the sportscasters but also the news reporters. This week I heard one of them talking about Sen. Obama, and the reporter used the phrase "to he and his wife." Good grief! From what college did you graduate!
My hang-up this month is the irritating people the Chicago Cubs organization invites to perform (I can't call it "singing") "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch. They get the first line correct---how can you screw up "Take me out to the ballgame"? But then, more often than not, their next line is "Take me out to the crowd."
You idiots! It's "Take me out WITH the crowd." What sense does "Take me out to the crowd" make?
Speaking of the peanuts and Cracker Jacks that come later in that song, how about these delicacies coming soon to a ballpark near you! One of the items already planned for the menus at the concession stands in the new Minnesota Twins ballpark, which opens in 2010, is a walleye taco. Minnesota is big on fishing, of course, with a few walleye floating around in each of that state's 10,000 lakes, but a taco containing fish meat? I think I'll stick to a ballpark hot dog.
You don't have to wait till 2010 to get the newest taste treat at the Sioux Falls Canaries' minor-league games. On the concession stand menu there this season is something that doesn't exactly make my taste buds water. They're called "fowl balls" (canary? bird? fowl? You get it?). What they are really is turkey testicles. If that thought doesn't make you put down this newspaper and run to the kitchen for a snack, I don't know what will.