Junto Boys

COMMENCEMENT WISDOM

I just read Michael "Moneyball" Lewis's commencement address to Tulane University's graduating class. Terrific! Following are a few excerpts.

I didn't go to Tulane but I feel as if I did. Like every New Orleans boy I had an important decision to make: Tulane or LSU? Even as a boy I could tell there was a difference. LSU people told jokes about Tulane people. Tulane people told jokes about LSU people. The difference was that Tulane people didn't think of them as jokes. They thought they were true stories. I remember one of these. It was about halftime at the old Sugar Bowl Stadium, during a Tulane-LSU football game. Two guys - one from LSU, the other from Tulane - stand side by side in the bathroom. The Tulane guy finishes, zips up, and walks out. The LSU guy finishes, washes his hands and runs after him. "Excuse me," he says, "but at LSU they teach us to wash our hands after we pee." The Tulane guy turns to him and says, "At Tulane they teach us not to pee on our hands."

My book tour came to New Orleans. When I arrived at my parents' house my mother asked me to go buy her a carton of milk at Lagenstein's. And so there I was walking down the aisle. I was, to put it mildly, pleased with myself. I'm thinking: I've been on Letterman. I've arrived! I'm thinking, even though I was just on Letterman, here I am, still humble enough to buy groceries at Lagenstein's. Just then an elderly woman stops and points. Then she's pushing her cart towards me. And just before I could say, "Ah yes, I'm that guy from Letterman," she says, "You're Malcolm Monroe's grandson, aren't you?" I'd never met the woman. But she pointed to my eyes, and she said, "I see your grandfather in here." I never felt so recognized.

My father's third and final piece of advice came right on the heels of the first two pieces, and more or less contradicted them. Money, he explained, is very important. All by itself it may not make you happy. But it won't make you sad either.

Your parents want you to make them proud. And you should. But you've got to do it yourself. And to do it yourself you may have to ignore their advice. Do what you love before you figure out how much love will cost you.

The commencement address is a sort of art form. The basic formula is to validate having gone to college, assuage the graduates' fear of "real life," tell a few jokes, and encourage them to dream big and follow their hearts. This was a good one. Speeches by writers are so often better than speeches by speakers.