A graduation speech that’s out of the box

Due to some oversight, I have not been asked to give any graduation speeches in this abundant season of them. Because it is heartbreaking to think that young Americans will miss the benefit of my wisdom, I have decided to jot down some advice anyway.

For the longest time, I had hoped to deliver my observations in person, but the trend is to invite famous football figures instead, because they are learned in the ways of the grunting arts.

Nothing against these worthies, but I was quite good at ping pong in elementary school, which I could have spun into an absorbing moral tale for the graduating students. After all, life is all about going back and forth, and you have to know how to take the spin with the power shots and keep up the rally.

Still, it is my hope that some speaker somewhere will deliver some remarks on my behalf. Yes, you could call this plagiarism, but I would call it flattering. So here goes, and hang on to your caps and gowns.

Dear President-cum-Alumni Appeaser-cum-Toady Fund-Raiser, Distinguished or Otherwise Faculty and Staff, Your Most Worshipful Football Coach, Parents Saved from Bankruptcy at Last, Relatives, Friends and the Graduating Class of '08: It is my great pleasure to be your commencement speaker, and let me commence by saying that I want to thank everyone involved in this happy error of judgment.

I am not here to deliver your standard "go forth and do great things" type of speech. I am here to think and speak out of the box. As you can see, I have set the box to the side of the podium here, and you might see me take a sandwich out of it from time to time because nothing fuels a telling remark more than a timely snack.

I know it is the law that I must quote the poet Robert Frost on such an auspicious occasion, but dear students, it could be worse. As your parents know to their cost, couples getting married used to have to play "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog" at their reception, but thankfully that law has been repealed.

So on the advice of my attorney, let me just say: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Students, you know what this means, don't you? Unless you have a decent navigational system in your car, you will get lost. In short, you will be the thing you dread most as a young person, a loser, and that will make all the difference. You will wander from a yellow wood to some great pit of ineptitude and failure, perhaps even Congress.

New graduates, you don't want this to happen. To avoid this, you must stay abreast of all the latest technology and keep on your toes. You see, and this is the point of my speech for the benefit of you students used to sleeping through class: Life Is a Reality Show.

We live in tribes, each one more ridiculous than the other, and we compete against each other because that is what the script requires. Fortunately, you will leave college well prepared, having already been introduced to many of the indignities of life -- unspeakable food, defeat in getting dates and unbelievable squalor. But enough about life in the freshman dorms.

Life Is a Reality Show. Wait and see. When you leave this sylvan setting, you will be asked to perform stupid antics, climbing greasy poles set in pools full of crocodiles, which we older people know as Corporate Life.

Life Is a Reality Show. You won't be able to trust anyone and there's no immunity to escape the judgment of the tribal counsel (i.e., board of directors), unless, of course, one of your parents owns the company.

Not to worry, Class of 2008. Everyone can be a winner in this great land we call America. Go forth now and write your own script. Me, I am going to have a sandwich out of the box.