Speech to reunion 55 of the North Shore H.S. Class of 1957

.....Phil, my soul friend has suggested that my speech to the class of '57 at North Shore H.S. in Glen Head, Long Island.  And I always follow what he so wisely suggests; so here it is.  (And don't forget to read the blog I wrote today that succeeds this)

REUNION ADDRESS—CLASS OF ‘57, North Shore High School,Saturday Feb.12, 2012

…..Where’s the teleprompter, Wally?  I thought there would be a teleprompter for a 45 minute speech.  Well I suppose I have to use old fashioned paper…so this address will take no longer than 12-15 minutes.  Less if I speak fast.

….. Well boys and girls Welcome to Homeroom…You’re 30 years late…you should Get to bed a bit earlier…I’m sure most of you have not met my wife, Rhoda. (She gets up).  We married a year after I retired in 1982 & moved to Florida.  She is an amazing woman.  So here we all are…far from Sea Cliff and Glen Head and NSHS, a school for the ages…no, Wally, not for the aged…I said for the ages…. Speaking of ages,   I’ll be 88 in a couple of weeks.  People have told me I look young for 88….  In these days I’d rather be 40 and look old. What I would be interested in learning from you  this evening is in what ways did your education at North Shore impact and shape your lives…If it did.

…..When I received Ned’s email with an invitation to be a guest at your reunion I was delighted… and honored.  Amazed that finally there would be a reunion of  NSHS grads  that would meet in Florida, and… delighted that I would get to meet once again all grown up students from North Shore whom  I recognized immediately tonite… by reading your name tags   I was also invited by Wally Kaufman to come loaded with words of profound wisdom. Indeed he suggested that I be “wise, profound, and funny…”a daunting challenge.  I don’t know how wise I am at this point in my life.  I’ve forgotten 3/4s of it…— Although, fortunately, I did recall enough to publish an autobiography…which you can buy on Amazon. I can use the royalties. …Now I think I have started trying to be funny, and I will evaluate my success if I heard a few giggles; so wisdom will have had to wait.

….Well enough of that. Now comes the wisdom part and you can be the judge of its profundity. .….. I was 33 years old when I met your shining morning faces in class, in the hallways, or in the smoke filled bathrooms. And as the years changed… the aroma of the smoke also changed.  As you are, no doubt well aware.  Of course, for some of you I did not enjoy the pleasure of having been your teacher.  No matter, I miss teaching & I miss all of you.  High school has to be one of the most exciting and happiest time of your life…and also, perhaps, the most frustrating…and boring.  I don’t know how you could sit for 45 minutes hearing Mr. Matthews spouting Latin, or Dr. Hartman teaching something called Social Studies which probably presaged Facebook.  In high school the priority is that you get an education.  And learning is something you should be doing all your life.  The more you learn the greater the  quality of richness and joy of living .

…..Now, I suppose that when you first spied me wandering the hallways in bewilderment, trying to find my classroom in a new building, you wondered what species I claimed to belong to and what planet did I drop from. I could read the curiosity in your eyes.  Who was this guy, anyway?

…..Well when my students were well seated in class, I told them who I was, and that I was a warrior, and I made it quite clear early on that you were there for an education & that I would accept nothing less from you in that regard than ruthless personal standards of excellence, and for the most part that’s what you gave me. And I learned that precept in order to survive combat in WWII;  in war, neglect excellence at your peril;  It was Aristotle who said, We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."  When  we returned from a combat mission, we had an immediate debriefing, and each member of the crew had to stand up and tell what mistakes he had made.  The goal of any mission was flawless execution.  So if you had to write a paper, that should have been your goal as well.  I stayed the course and made my classes understand that.

…..At one time some student who no doubt heard me read exerpts from Milton’s “Paradise Lost”  placed a sign above my doorway reading, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”. (There was some truth in that.)I demanded excellence and challenged you to provide it.  Four years passed quickly & some of you went off to college and some of you simply joined the work force or went to Viet Nam. And you raised families and had your careers.  And here you are.  As for myself, I committed myself to inspire you and mesmerize you with Chaucer, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and Shakespeare. But some of my students weren’t so much mesmerized as they were sleepy in class.

  This is all good and natural and another stage in your life.  Mine too. I’m a teacher and I will never stop teaching. You can do more to enrich your life; take a hiatus from the tv and the pc—if excellence is a habit, so is learning and only the things above you can lift you up.  Florida has some excellent museums & theaters…you can learn something from them.  You can read books about historical events and about ancient pagan eras.  You can read about  WW1, WWII, the Civil and Revolutionary wars, and biographies of great men and women such as Ben Franklin, Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton our first treasurer and Helen Keller and Eleanor Roosevelt and Anne Frank.  You can read about Einstein and how he has affected science and the world.  Here in Florida as you get older, you are doing things that entertertain you, but what are you doing to exercise your brain?  If Aristotle says that excellence is a habit, I say so is learning.  I have  written and published 11 books in my eighties, I have taught Shakespeare classes to senior students, I have performed in leading roles in several musicals from Gilbert & Sullivan to Broadway classics, like Fiddler on the Roof, and My Fair Lady as examples. I am not sitting around degenerating.

…..But.....Make no mistake--I am no Don Quixote tilting at windmills, nor Gulliver confronting the Yahoos; nor Sir Gawain seeking the Green Knight, nor David confronting Goliath.  But what I am, I am--like Ulysses, who facing old age, yearned once more to explore worlds he'd never seen, and do things he had never done…this despite his reunion with his wife, Penelope, after 20 years. (Poor Penelope, I don’t think they had divorce lawyers in those days).  But as I have said, learning is a habit.  It should be for you to seek; after all you are North Shore graduates=and I consider you still in my class.

 …..Ulyssey’s goal was “To follow knowledge”…wherever it could be found. And that’s what education and life is all about. Striving, seeking, finding and never yielding to its pain and disappointments, and as Hamlet calls them-- the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” which surely will come in every human life.  Learning helps to survive anything.….. The Pierian Spring in pagan times was known as the source of knowledge, and Alexander Pope said ”…a little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”  My friends it is an honor to be here and I am greatful for the opportunity to see you  once again.  Stay well. And God bless you.