This is going to be a long post, but shall be interesting. This is part of the transcript of my graduation ceremony, typed up by myself. There is very little explaining to do, as it is just a simple speech given by a retiring teacher, it pretty much does justice for itself.

Clark Reinke: Good Afternoon, my name is Clark Reinke and I have the distinct pleasure of serving this community as superintendent of schools. On behalf of the board of Education and the entire School district, I too want to welcome you to this years Plymouth High Commencement Ceremony. As superintendant of schools, I know I can speak for all of the Plymouth School District community in saying congratulations to the class of 2006. Graduates, you are here today because you took advantage of a quality, comprehensive education that this community has provided. Many people have had a stake in seeing you get here to this day, your family, friends, and the entire community. All commend you for your accomplishments and take pride in providing the educational opportunities, and the support that you needed.

Participating in this ceremony and seeing each of you come across this stage to recieve your diploma also means a great deal to your teachers, principals, the district support staff, and to me personally. Because it is symbollic of the high achievement of success of our district's education program, and the committment of all of us, who have dedicated all of our professional lives to helping young people learn.

Each year, the graduating class selects a special individual to address them on this important occaision, and I believe they made an excellent choice in longtime Plymouth High english teacher, Mr. Jim Beaver. Being the humble individual that Jim is, he requested that I not say anything about him in the way of introduction. But, I do have to say that especially in this his final year as a teacher, that Jim Beaver is a true professional educator in every way, and it has been a pleasure to know him and work with him. I know that he has had a positive influence in the growth and development of many young people in his years of service as a teacher and coach, Mr. Jim Beaver.

Mr. Beaver: I would like to begin by thanking the Valedictorians for a wonderful speech. And the parents who think "well you didn't learn anything at that school", found out that they did. Tomorrow I am giving essay exams to the Freshmen and this may be the last class that I will ever teach, so I will try to do my best this afternoon. Graduates, parents, relatives, the rest of the community, teachers, schoolboard members, let me begin.

Henry David Thoreau once wrote that "most men lead lives of quiet desperation".

But not you. Thirty-nine years ago I sat in a graduating class just as you are, apart of the "New Age" of freedom. We were the Age of Aquarius. Our political leaders: John Kennedy, his brother Robert, and Martin Luther King had founght dilligently for individual rights. John Lennon told us to imagine a world of peace and brotherhood, and Bob Dylan warned the older generations to get out of the new road if you can't lend a hand, 'cuz the times they are a changing -- You're lucky I can't sing.

I, who was inspired by these words, was not going to be apart of quiet desperation. Ten years later, those political leaders were assassinated, rockstars were playing in front of stadium crowds for millions of dollars. The cultural leaders had left to go to Wall Street, and the country embraced disco. For Pete's sake! My friends grew up, got married, settled down, got jobs, had kids, had a mortgage. It seemed to me that they had settled down in quiet lives of desperation.

But not you, please.

Today, Abby Neisus, you have a goal to be a life coach. You will have no shortage of clients. Our age has seemed to have lost it's soul. We read "Tuesdays with Maury" and fervently listen to Doctor Phil hoping to discover what is missing in our lives.

Therefore, today let me talk to you about how to avoid the life of quiet desperation so that maybe you can lead a great life. The first thing you need to be worried about is probably money. Some of you are going on to school and realize that. You know it can be an issue. Charles Dickens once said "if you spend more than you earn you will lead a life of misery". Considering the nature of debtors prison back then you would lead a life of misery.

But today the American way is to borrow money. When I first met my wife she was $3,000 in debt to Mastercard, had a brand new Mercury Cougar car payment and had a closet full of beautiful clothes and in white go-go boots, mini skirts, and blonde hair, she was stunning -- Is stunning.

Still, she believed that all you had to do was make the minimum payment and you can charge as much as you wanted. Boy was she wrong. A friend of my daughter's at college once maxed out three credit cards to the tune of $10,000, yet still found a way to buy seven swimming suits to go on for spring break. I know football players that wear the same underwear seven weeks in a row. Why she needed seven swimming suits I'll never know. But the master of debt has to be the Federal government, having reached almost 8 Trillion dollars in national debt.

I think they think like my wife. All you have to do is pay the minimum, and you dont have to worry, you can charge as much as you want. So to avoid a life of quiet desperation you need to need to be careful about debt, and careful about money.

Closely associated with money is the world of work. The truth is, the more you earn, the more you can spend. Kurt Vonegut, novelist and street philosopher, once stated that we work much harder than animals were meant to work. I agree with that. Still, we have a deplorable work ethic in this culture. Gary Haucke, local plumber and street philosopher, once told me if you don't work with your mind you're destined to work with your back. I have had some of you in class, and you're destined to work with your back.

However, that's all right. The important thing here is that you find meaningful work, something you have a passion for. Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author wrote in "Empire Falls", "Things we have a passion for we do not do very well sometimes. And things we do really well, we have no passion for. And we choose to work in areas where we do things really well, and we live a life without passion."

So I'm asking you, find something you love to do and do it so well they have to pay you for it. You'll avoid a quiet life of desperation.

Perhaps the most complex issue all of us have to face is the area of Love. Most of you know about St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, it's the idyllic form of Love. It's read at every wedding. Still, you have been fueled by the fairytales of Cinderella and The Princess Bride, with Wesley and Buttercup riding off into the sunset with this fairytale marriage. Films like Serendipity and Titanic so dominate your psyche that you believe you will surely have the fairytale marriage.

However, Carolyn Hax writes in the Washington Post that "he who believes in the fairytale marriage is too young to get married". Father Dominic, a priest at St. John the Baptist once said at a wedding, "watch out for the broken glass when you get married, it's the shattered marriages that are all around you. Don't let that deter you from getting married." To avoid all of that shattered glass, I told my children that I will not pay one dime towards your wedding unless if you know that person for at least 3 years. Today, at 30 and 31 neither is married. If I had said 18 months my son would have been married 5 times by now.

The truth of the matter is that you need to learn to accept the issues with your spouse before you get married. That can be a dificult thing. I have spent 34 years trying to put one dent into the issue of my spouse and I have not done it. It truth, she has not put one dent in mine. Albert Einstein, believe it or not, once wrote that "Women marry men hoping they will change, and men marry women hoping they won't. And the two, inevitably are both disappointed."

So I tell you, to avoid a life of quiet desperation in your marriage, you need to accept the issues of your spouse.

Another important factor in your life will be friends. I found that both your generation and mine severely limits our friendship to social class, economic class, gender, race, profession. You need to expand that, you'll find when you get out there that almost all people are very generous and very kind. The person who paints the outhouse and the person who lives in the penthouse actually have a lot in common. They're decent people. The person who pours your coffee in the morning, or the custodian who cleans the lunchroom after you eat can be just as decent and just as intelligent as the person who signs your paycheck, or the family that runs Sargento cheese. I know all of them, and they're kind, decent, people.

You do not want to live the life of Elanor Rigby from The Beatles' song, "Living alone, dying alone, and buried alone." To avoid that life of quiet desperation, surround yourself with warm, decent, friends.

Another area of concern is family. Soon, hopefully from your parents point of view I suppose, you will be leaving home. They need to provide you with a safety net. You're going to go out and walk on a high wire in life. Should you fall off, they need to patch you up, pick you up, and get you back on that high wire. Not keep you home until you're 40. Eventually, you will be making your own family. My sister believes that almost all familes are dysfunctional, I think it's that issues thing that people have. The truth of the matter is, that in terms of family you need to be able to make sacrifices. If your spouse jabs you in the ribs at 2 o'clock in the morning, you need to get up because the baby is crying. So, Huck Finn once said, "what you want above all is peace on a raft."

Make sacrifices for your family, marry someone who will make sacrifices for your family, raise children who will make sacrifices for your family. You will avoid that quiet life, of selfish desperation.

Finally, and you're probably thinking 'about time', the most important thing that you need to discover in your life is peace of mind. It is my belief that people with extreme faith have discovered this peace of mind because they have an anchor in their lives when the ill winds of life blow them off course. Sadly, I have seen in both your generation and mine a sense of apathy and cynicism that has creeped into our lives. You need to replace this with hope and energy. Bob Dylan once wrote, "he not busy being born is busy dying." This hope and energy should get you busy being born.

If you can't help it, bring in social causes. Bring it to charities. Places like Safe Harbor, Habitat for Humanity, the Sierra Club, the food pantry, Goodwill. They need your help, you will be able to look in the mirror and accept yourself for who you are. You will discover peace of mind. It is the best you can do to offer positive contributions to humanity.

There you have it.
There you have it.

Be careful with money, find meaningful work, understand the issues of your spouse and love, find warm, caring, genuine friends, make sacrifices for your family, and discover peace of mind.

I've been going to school for 52 straight years. It's the best I got. You'd think I'd be smarter than that. Thirty-four years ago I sat in an audience just as you are, and I ran away from a town just like this because I didn't want to live a life of quiet desperation. I walked on the beaches of California, I hike the mountains of Colorado and Georgia, I taught school for 5 months in the Andes mountains.

In all of the things I have talked about today, I have found right here in this community. And if you talk to the adults that live here, they do not lead lives of quiet desperation. They lead rich, wholesome lives with friends and family. Now, you can have that too.

If you travel the world and you can't find what's missing, it doesn't work out, I invite you to come back home. I'd like to thank the students that I've had, the former students that have given me a meaningful, vibrant life and to keep me young. So I challenge you, I challenge you deeply to avoid leading that life of quiet desperation, give meaningful energy to life.

Imagine not John Lennon's world, but a world of your own free of terrorism and nuclear weapons, an environment that is safe, an environment that is pure. You and your classmates are far smarter, and far better prepared to face the world that I and my classmates were.

I would like to congratulate you on your graduation, and on your emancipation. Be kind to each other, be kind to the planet, as Kurt Vonegut writes "Mother Earth, she ain't a very happy mother these days."

Thank you, God bless you all and keep you safe.