I figure, you’re the valedictorian, you deserve to be able to crack wise rather than just spout some pompous malarkey and remind your fellow students how much smarter you are again.
At my high school, we were all given the opportunity to say a few words after receiving our diplomas [yeah, it made for some long ceremonies, but you never knew what was gonna happen]. I was known as something of a wit in those days — the Franklin Pierce Adams of A/V Nerds Who Whould Know Who Franklin Pierce Adams Is — and, with grandparents attending the ceremonies, I was threatened with death were I to “get funny” up there. I have few regrets, but saying something nice and unmemorable instead of getting a laugh from the largest crowd I will ever see, assembled in once place and who didn’t come to my website googling for old videogame roms or 80s cartoons, will always be something like a sore spot.
Heed this: as long as she takes it easy on the dirty-mouth, my child’s commencement speech will consist of whatever she doggone well pleases. I actually may get the ACLU involved before the ceremony rather than wait until after as this parent did. That’s just the kind of psychotic, I mean pro-active, dad I will be.
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