Rod Sterling’s was invited to speak at his former high school to the 1968 graduates of Binghamton Central High School. His words are just as relevant today as then.
______________________________
Graduates, ladies and gentlemen, faculty, friends and old acquaintances—unless you’ve reached my age and are as familiar with the taste of Serutan as you are with bourbon, it’s unlikely that you can understand what kind of bitter-sweet poignance attends the return of a man like myself to this city … this school … this room. In its aged mustiness, in its archaic ugliness, in its depressing sameness … it is nonetheless filled with ghosts and certain haunting memories that conjure up faces and names, sights and sounds, laughter and events—almost too sweet to be bearable. But, as I say, nostalgia is the privilege of the aging—and to you young graduates who have only sipped at your cup of life—I’m sure you must look upon this aging writer from the West Coast, with his hundred and forty-odd pounds of solid grizzle, and wonder, albeit patiently, what is there about a room … a terribly familiar auditorium … a study hall, a classroom, a gym that still carries with it the ingrained scent of socks and sneakers—to turn a man so wistful and so reminiscent.
No comments:
Post a Comment