Central High School Grad, Drew F., at the 2020 Ceremony By Anne Scheck
No one asked me to write anything this year for that ceremony accompanied by the familiar orchestral march “Pomp and Circumstance.” In years past, every once in a while, I’d get an inquiry to supply a few pithy comments appropriate for recipients of freshly printed diplomas. That’s the side effect of being married to a man who previously served as a college administrator for nearly two decades. Cap-and-gown procedures were an annual event.
But if ever there was a time I wanted to write a bit of graduation commentary, it’s this year. I have no advice. I have admiration. And so, allow me to write a shout-out and salute to the Central High School (CHS) graduates of 2020. To those students banned from their high school in March and issued Chrome books for classrooms instead… as COVID-19 crossed over their senior year like atmospheric poison, forcing them indoors, away from friends, and instantly transported from the life they knew into days at the dining room table or bedroom desk.
We all could learn a thing or two from you, CHS grad – you, who we’ve been told are a mere shadow of the baby boom generation that raised you, because you didn’t have a living-room war like Vietnam to deepen your sense of moral obligation nor the necessity to make your own fun without the technological gadgetry, which has kept you from appreciating how life is experienced without a cell phone or social media.
No, all those character-building challenges that us boomers reference was completely unknown to you, wasn’t it? I know this because, having recently had coffee with a few of my baby-boom generation – while social-distancing, of course – I was treated to something aside from a hot drink with a specially-ground South American blend of caffeine. I learned how you have it no harder than we ever did. That’s right. When the conversation turned to you, recent CHS graduate – about whom I’d expressed so much sorrow at your plight -- I was speedily corrected by someone who reminded me that we boomers pulled ourselves up from the bootstraps. Well, we never actually had bootstraps, of course – you know, those proverbial leather lacings that make life so tough? But we boomers can just look at you, and know you don’t have it any worse, and apply that expression.
It didn’t matter that I disagreed. I was told the evidence was just overwhelming. But it seemed to boil down to just one thing, really. It’s that we boomers did not start out with what we have now. That’s right. It’s as simple as that. We of the baby-boom cohort may have ended up with granite countertops and hybrid vehicles and three times the house size of our parents, but we sure-as-shootin’ didn’t begin that way. So there you have it. The proof is incontrovertible.
So, CHS 2020 grad, let’s take a tally of just how easy you’ve got it, shall we? You were born around 9-11 at an uncertain time in a country reeling from a foreign attack. You started kindergarten about the time the world started sliding into what will forever be known as “The Great Recession,” in which your family very likely was affected, as most were. You watched as those teen jobs so plentiful for us boomers – in retail and restaurants – disappeared as adults who needed to put food on the table took them.
The financial squeeze your parents may have faced probably made you more cognizant of debt – a good thing in an era in which typical four-year college expenses didn’t just skyrocket but became the fiscal equivalent of a moon shot, with the average cost of college now 30 times what I paid in the 1970s. And, by the way, we of the baby-boom generation, who set out as happy hippies intent on finding fulfillment instead of crass consumerism, became the most materialistic generation in American history. And the most multiply-married, too -- divorcing far more than our predecessors.
Over recent years – as I watched news accounts chronicle our shrinking US middle class and growing income gap – there was something that made me feel good about the future. It was you, CHS grad. You always seemed to be fundraising for a cause, from Mr. & Ms. Central to the school pantry you established. You not only performed flawlessly in school musicals that stopped me from pining for LA’s Pantages Theater, but you did so in small, student-made video productions. One of which – called “Alone” – is so heart-grabbing it’s as good any public-service announcement I’ve ever seen, and that includes my childhood memories of a sad Smokey the Bear.
Your acts of kindness to the community are so plentiful we take it for granted. Every single spring, the Future Farmers of America grossly under-charges me for the prettiest plants I put in my yard. And, when I make trips into the high school, it was you, CHS students, who were the most polite when I asked for help, showing such good manners that every once in a while I thought certain staff might benefit from this example.
You don’t seem to see diversity as a word -- but as a way of living. You don’t seem to understand why anyone would bother to make distinctions.
You think education should be in pursuit of knowledge, not just an escapade into campus life. I know all this, because I know some of you CHS grads. And also because your generation is being followed by demographers, who have named you “Generation Z.” A study a few years ago found that you are “loyal, compassionate, thoughtful, open-minded, responsible and determined.” You have embraced old-fashioned values like the importance of family, even as you’ve seen that sentiment decline among members of my generation.
So I have no recommendation for you, CHS grad. From where I sit, safe and smug in my baby-boomer perch, you look so far ahead of where I was at your age, you need no advice from me.
I have often said I hate to die before I can glimpse ahead and see what happens beyond my lifetime, perhaps flying cars and telepathic communication. But I think I’ve already seen the future, and it is a comfort. It’s Generation Z. So, thank you, CHS grad, you are good to go. And, despite all that’s happened in this pandemic of 2020, “go” is what you have proved you are so capable of doing. You’re on your way. Congratulations.