LINK Graduation 2010.pdf - Portland High School

“Emerging from the Breeze”
Salutatorian Speech by Timothy D. Weber
Graduation, June 2, 2010
We gather here today to acknowledge the end of a certain part of our lives. High school has
been a defining four years, complete with stressful last-minute papers, athletic victories, stupid
mistakes, new friends, and many other life-changing moments. Today we face a transition unlike any
that we have experienced. We are confronted with the inescapable transformation into official
adulthood. We leave behind, but never out of memory a school, “old in story, shrined in glory”. A
helpful faculty, full of compassion and understanding. And a community woven tight by pride and
respect. Portland High School is truly an extraordinary place.
After we receive our diplomas, we will be sent into a world where jobs are scarce, where
outsourcing is rampant, and where profits are valued over wellness. The dark sky and chilling winds
of a numb economy have descended, but we have not yet been out to feel the storm. We graduate
facing a raging gale.
I will borrow a term from sailing: tacking is when a sailor directs their vessel up towards the
direction of the breeze, continuing the turn until the previously shielded side of the sail is filled with
the wind. Tacking is essential to sailing because it allows boats to travel upwind.
Rather than idle against an immovable breeze, letting the wind drift us backwards, we should
consider graduation as an opportunity to tack. We should consider it not as a finish, but a change in
direction, along the zigzagged, complicated path towards personal fulfillment.
And in that pivotal moment when we face down the treacherous current, we must carry on
boldly, intrepid sailors in uncharted waters. Next year, we will have the ability to change ourselves
completely. While there are many poor tacks one could take, there are just as many favorable
choices to make. Try something new. Give back to the community. Or perhaps just work harder. The
possibility to redefine oneself is there, though only available to those willing to brave the gale to
perform a tack.
We must not condemn our vessels to inactivity. We cannot close our minds to change. Tack
often. Doing unique, different, or unfamiliar things will exercise the mind and promote new ways of
thinking about the world. Experiencing new stimuli will make is smarter, more energetic, more
versatile, and more sociable.
As our fleet of 2010 leaves the safe harbor of high school, and enters the wide ocean, our
collective tacks will steer the course of society. We will adjust the bearing from route old and
obsolete, to a new path of innovation and creativity. Our imaginations will fill our sail along the
journeys. We are a class whose ambitions are unsurpassed,
whose energy is surging, and whose sense of pride is
unyielding. As graduates, we will contribute to a new
generation of American ingenuity.
I will conclude with a bit of advice from the celebrated
American author and humorist, Mark Twain. In his youth, Twain
worked as a printer’s apprentice, steamboat operator, and
journalist, all while educating himself in local libraries. He
wrote: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed
by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So
throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch
the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Congratulations Class of Two-Thousand Ten!
Tim Weber
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