Over Easy: Virtual graduation speech to the virtual class of 2020 - Press Herald

Dear graduates,

You will be the first graduating into a world of face masks and gloves and the end of trust between the government and the people. Off to a good start, you may think.

Bob Kalish observes life from a placid place on the island of Arrowsic (motto: You’re not in Georgetown yet). You can reach him at [email protected]

And I hate to be the one to pull your face mask off, but here’s the real scoop: None of us have a clue as to what the answers are, much less the question. But isn’t it true that a veil of silence has fallen over us when we try to make some kind of sense of it? I mean, when we had a question, weren’t we often told by adults to “Wait ’til you’re grown up”? Or, “Let the adults worry about it”? Either way there seemed to be a surprise waiting for us around the corner for our senior class.

Well, now you are an adult, so have a seat while I tell you the truth. I mean the Truth: No one has the answers and very few have even an idea of what question(s) to ask. Let’s take a look at questionable ideas.

True story: Back in the ’50s there was a Cold War between Us (the United States) and Them (the Soviet Union). Aspiring foreign correspondent that I was, in college I took two years of Russian, and one day our Russian instructor announced a forthcoming visit from a group of Soviet journalists. Part of the cultural exchange between the two countries.

“Don’t be fooled,” our instructor said. “They work for the Communist Party. So think of some hardball questions, the kind of question they’d not hear at home.”

When they visited our classroom and it was time for questions the classroom was as silent as a Big Eight cheerleader. Finally, one fellow raised his hand stood up and asked the visiting journalists, “What do you think of the American teenager?” The student’s name? Walter Cronkite (no, just kidding).

And there’s a funny story that goes like this: A seeker goes to visit a holy man in the Himalayan mountains. He spends days climbing and climbing and eventually finds the holy man in a cave several thousand feet high sitting cross-legged as if expecting the seeker’s appearance.

“Oh holy man, what is the secret of life?”

“The secret of life?” the holy man echoed. “A cup of tea.”

The seeker can’t believe it. He explodes. “I came all this way, weeks of walking and climbing and all for a cup of tea?”

The holy man raises his eyebrows. “It’s not a cup of tea?”

People we think of in high positions, like the rulers of countries, presidents of large corporations and others on the ladder of life, must every once in a while on the darkest night find themselves wide awake in a cold sweat and realize there is no such person. There is only an empty cushion. No one is in charge, we are all seekers without a teacher, all after the answers but not sure what the questions are. In other words, like the character of Zock in the novel “Temple of ”Gold” we can’t find the handle. But neither can anyone else. The handle is a myth, just like the cup of tea.

My wish for you and your classmates is that you never find the answers but you continue to ask the questions. And please, have a cup of tea.

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