Hilltopper senior picture 1981
I can relate to the 2020 college and high school graduates. They are being cheated out of that one big moment where they are publicly rewarded for years of hard work. They have stared up the steps and now, finally, can step up those stairs. Except, in reality, they can’t.
They will miss walking across the stage to accept that sheepskin AND to give the stink-eye to select educators who pushed and prodded them to that moment.
I too missed my college graduation ceremony.
Actually, I missed Senior Week, 10 days of drinking beer and saying goodbye to people I wasn’t sure I’d ever see again.
Here’s the story.
I was a senior at Marquette University, a Jesuit Catholic school. I needed a job after graduation in my selected profession, which was journalism. I identified 50 small- to mid-sized newspapers around the country and made my case for why they needed me on their staff whilst surrounded by dirt and dust on a cold weekend in January. A radio blared the Super Bowl while my frigid fingers typed cover letter after cover letter. That piece of equipment was my future livelihood so I lugged it to the foundry where I worked as a Burns security guard.
I have no idea who would want to break into a dank, dark, dilapidated plant with no heat and no people, but, hey, it was currency for PBR six-packs and bowls of Milwaukee’s famous Real Chili. In between hourly rounds, I typed. In the weeks to come, my mailbox filled with rejections – 48 of them. My career was ending before it started.
Then I received an invitation from the Baraboo, Wis., newspaper. I was to take a writing test. I drove the two plus hours to Baraboo, strangled by a brown as bark striped necktie, and sat in a room with fellow aspiring journalists. The writing prompt was simple: a small plane crashed on a playground of a school.
Needless to say, I wasn’t the best writer in the room. I was not offered a job and began wondering if Dad was right -- journalism was a dead-end, second-rate profession. It was now early March, and my Senior Week was going to be about the joys of others.
And then one morning the phone rang.
Sight unseen and with no writing test, I was offered a reporter position at the Hibbing Daily Tribune in Minnesota for $9,500 a year. I was elated. My dream had come true. A Pulitzer Prize awaited me. But there was a catch. I needed to start on the very next Monday, two months before I was to proudly walk across the stage. The conundrum was real. I talked to my professors and reached an agreement with all but one. I could finish my work, papers, projects and tests, including the final exam, early in order to follow my dream. The one holdout was a philosophy professor who also donned a white collar. Father I-Play-by-the-Rules-No-Matter-What threatened failure if I wasn’t in my seat through Thursday, April 16 as well as on the scheduled day and time in early May to take the final exam.
I called Al Zdon, the managing editor of the newspaper, and pleaded my case. He graciously allowed me to start on April 17. Good Friday.
What I didn’t know was that new hires were not allowed time off in the first full year of employment. That included no paid sick leave. But Al was kind. He offered a day to fly to Milwaukee to take my final exam with Father I-Play-by-the-Rules-No-Matter-What.
I’m not sure what I scored on that exam, but I remember giving Father a sneer as I handed him my blue book.
I never said goodbye to my friends and fellow classmates. It still rubs me raw.
To that end, I congratulate all 2020 graduates. I truly feel your pain. When the time comes, reunite with your besties, hoist a beverage and salute each other.
Like many things in life, curve balls happen. To all the graduates, no stairs or stage define the journey you walk. You did it. I applaud you.
Ring Out a Hoya!
Roderick