Another Spartan into the Breach

Nephew Jeremy graduates Michigan State University with a hat trick

The weather is gloomy, even for early December in Michigan, and wet snow greets us (me and my Audi A4 (it's a sickness)) as we enter I-96 westbound toward East Lansing.  Mom drives separately to pick up Aunt Debbie in Battle Creek, Sister Sue will bring Jeremy's brothers, and all contingents will meet at the Breslin Center on the MSU campus.

Big event, especially for Spartan fans in the family.

One might think the Breslin Center is named for Jimmy Breslin, the pugnacious Pulitzer-winning (1986) columnist who writes?/wrote for several New York newspapers, and authored The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, among others.  No, this is the Jack Breslin Student Events Center—Jack was a universally beloved administrator, known as "Mr. MSU," whose innovative ideas for a multipurpose activity center took final form in 1970.

Main events are Spartan basketball games—MSU under Tom Izzo has been a consistently powerful force in college hoops—and graduation ceremonies.  Nephew Jeremy is having a winter rite of passage.

Just a few years ago I'd been here for his mother's/my sister's graduation, I recall it being the same time of the year.  On that occasion we were blessed with a commencement address from the erudite world-traveler, Doris Kearns Goodwin, best known for a biography—some would say panegyric—of Lyndon Baines Johnson (a former US president).  I felt, then, Doris was living proof the art of protracted droning will not die without a valiant struggle.

Doris, truly a wonderful woman, had some connection to MSU I surmised, but later I discover this public-speaking thing is sort of a hobby of hers, addressing university graduation ceremonies throughout the country.  Probably, she is more reasonably priced than famous MSU alumni such as Sam Donaldson, Jerry Jones, Jimmy Buffet, or Senator Robert Dole.  But I must confess to hoping she won't be recycled on this occasion.

The winter graduation ceremonies are smaller:  Normally MSU, a mammoth higher-education system with close to 44,000 enrollment, graduates 2500-3000 in December compared to ~8000 in May.  Not only does the December date help grads find the magic job sooner—MSU has one of the best career placement services in the country—the smaller number is considerate to friends and family.

Thank you, Jeremy.

Let's face it, folks, attending a large graduation is only slightly less grueling than a run-of-the-mill root canal.  Unless perhaps you're a parent, who may feel the excitement of the imminence of junior finally flying the coop!  And I don't know what Emily Post would say, but as an uncle, I feel attendance is purely voluntary… so long as I write a check and hang out with the bright-eyed kid, his friends, and relatives at the afterward events.

But I've decided personally to give Jeremy's do the ol' college try :) and actually be there at the handing out of certificates, for a few noble reasons:

1. The winter event has only 2700 students to walk through.  (Do you ever wonder how university officials manage to shake hands for hours at a time, while saying some of the most elaborate names—Shaneeka Uhuru Mastrantonio Slobotsky, Plaxico Toofless Redneckian, etc.?  Great invention idea: robotic handshaker and name announcer.  The university official would only need to stand close, nod, and smile benignly.)
2. Jer is such a good kid, works his butt off, nothing handed to him on a platter, this degree thing (bachelor of hospitality business) means so much to him, and he shows every sign of eventually learning my way of becoming a bonafide, legitimate, proactive enemy of the state, especially the bad-Republican version.
3. Hot, nubile coeds looking for action!

Obviously kidding about number 3:  I come to the ceremony for the speeches and to watch, from the bleachers, yesterday's children being handed rolled-up office paper tied with a green ribbon.  I'm in the nosebleed seats because I ran late, through all fault of my own I might add, and the "last chance"-parking arrows directed me half a mile from the center.

Still, I persevere and crane my neck, even try the optical zoom on my digital camera, to try to locate Jeremy.  I see this one guy, taller, about 6' maybe, who fits the specs.  Only thing, he's put masking tape on the top of his mortarboard (cap) spelling "RITE HEAR."  This can't be Jeremy because spelling is one of his strong points.  Guess what!?  You betcha.

Which I learn when we all gather down the street afterward at Applebee's for lunch.  (The ceremony took a scant three hours out of our lives.)  Based on his work ethic and the young women who swarm him—seriously, you have to stay out of the line of sight or you'll be mercilessly trampled—Jeremy is going to be the rock star of Applebee's, a fine, long-range thinking establishment.

But I have to ask him about the lettering, "Jer, did you realize HEAR is what you do with your ears, and HERE, same number of letters, is the correct pronoun for location?"

Well, sure, he was just being cute, figuring if he misspelled RIGHT as RITE, it was fair game to misspell HERE as HEAR.  I'm thinking, yeah sure.  But you have to hand it to a guy that defies the rules—officials have been clamping down on errant cap-letterers, he's one of maybe three I saw this morning—with no fear of humiliation.  Now that I think of it, maybe that's why he gets all the babes!  No fear.

Jeremy does have a main squeeze, Dorothy (not from Kansas), and another friend or two have been invited by.  My brother and sister-in-law also have come from the SE Michigan area to be with him for the ceremony and at lunch, but now must fly to be with a birthday party for a niece in Port Huron… for Michigan these are fair distances.  Some others, such as Jeremy's dad, estranged from my sister, bringing a lady friend of recent acquisition, potentially awkward except for us being so sophisticated and all.

Today, though, everyone's a big happy family in celebration.  It is important, this college graduation thing.  During my day, I was so antiauthoritarian I blew off my graduation entirely.  How silly!  And unrecoverable.  Formal university commencement is how, from my experience, most women regard their wedding days: "Today, I'm royalty; it's my special time, and I'm never going to forget how wonderful it is, and how wonderful I am."

After lunch, my niece Mary and her husband hold a reception complete with starchy fillers, snacks, alcohol-free (damn!) punch, and Play Station for the gameboys.  Mary also has some "Hooked on Tchaikovsky" playing from the CD behind them.

You don't know the meaning of surreal until you're absorbing the sights and sounds of "Demolition Madmen" on the TV, while Marche Slav serenades you in the background, someone's dog is eating the shoes you left by the door, and you're trying to explain your line of work to Jeremy's grandpa.

What a time.

This is his time!  For all time.  And I admit to getting a charge from it, too.  Nice work, kid.