Dinner Speech

I get asked to speak at the senior dinner from time to time, and I've written a speech on tiny cue cards that I now use every time. So, for posterity's sake, here it is:

"The McGhee Speech (tm)"

So here we go, one more McGhee-Story. And before I start, I believe Emma was handing out McGhee-Story-Bingo cards, so you can participate in the game as I chat.

And here I am. Whenever I’m asked to speak, I always ask what they would like me to say, and it’s inevitably:

• Say something funny.
• Offer vague yet insightful advice.
• Roll Tide.

But there’s a problem with this whole advice speech thing—most of the advice is bad. And what little good advice is given inevitably flies over your heads, because let’s be perfectly honest, you really just want to talk to the people at your table. I mean, heck, I’ve given you the same advice every day of the school year at the end of every class. “Be good, just, and virtuous, and don’t buy a car that’s on fire.”

So here’s your first McGhee-Story. It’s my wedding story. Growing up, my dad and I rarely talked. Most of our conversations were like, “What’cha say?” “Hey.” Because my dad was one of those guys who really only talked when he needed to say something important. So at my wedding reception, when my dad took me aside to offer me marriage advice, I was like holy crap, he’s talking, I better listen.

Now, he was a little tipsy from the wine, but he took me aside in all earnestness and said, “Here’s the secret to a successful marriage. Never… Always—always put the seat back down.” Then he nodded sagely and headed back to the bar.

And yet I feel compelled to offer you some kind of advice, so I turned to the internets to find some advice for the youths, and here’s what I found.

• ·      Don’t look directly at the sun. That’s sound advice right there.
• ·      Don’t wear white after Labor Day. Winter white is not a real thing. Don’t try to make winter white a thing.
• ·      This one is from Mark Twain, my hero: “Never bring a dog to a funeral.” I like that one.
• ·      This one is for when you’re old enough: A mixed drink should never have more than two ingredients.
• ·      Ice counts.
• ·      And for the fellas: Gentlemen, hold the door.
• ·      And here’s one for all genders, the Proper Way to Shake Hands—web to web, eye to eye, two pumps, and you’re done. None of this jerking people back and forth like some kind of bad used car salesman, and certainly no limp, wet rags for handshakes. It’s the right way to shake hands. Practice it. Be an adult.
• ·      Here’s a cooking tip: When deep frying chicken, always completely cover the thighs and breasts. That might actually be good advice for other occasions, too.
• ·      And don’t buy a car that’s on fire.

I saved the best for last, so here’s the best one:

“Measure thy progress in life by the rustiness of the gates through which you pass.”

Yeah. Impressive, right? That’s from the Bible. It’s from the Book of Marvin. Well, yeah, that’s actually a gnostic text, kind of apocryphal, really. Actually, no, a friend of mine in college wrote that.

Look, it’s the best advice you’re ever going to get. It means do new stuff, don’t suck, and don’t look back. Don’t go where others have gone before. Be Captain Kirk. Violate the Prime Directive and stuff. Be awesome.

So, yeah, that’s my best advice. It’s certainly better than the advice I got at my graduation from Alabama. (And for those of you playing McGhee-Story-bingo, this one’s a two-fer because I’m going to tell another story AND mention Alabama.)

My Graduation Speaker Story.

First of all, I do not remember what this guy’s name was, and that’s probably for the better. He was some Secretary of Something Minor under the Reagan administration, and I could look it up, but his speech was so absolutely traumatic at the time that it’s really for the best if I don’t. He attempted to riff on the famous Tom Wolfe line, “You can never go home again.” Now that’s good advice—when you return, you will have changed, and things will have gone on and changed without you when you least suspected it, and so home won’t be home, and yadda yadda yadda.

But THIS GUY’s culminating advice?

• ·      Don’t come back.
• ·      Leave this place.
• ·      Leave all of this in the past.

The arena got dead quiet. We were all appalled. What do you say? What can you say? And after a two-beat pause of dead silence, this girl sitting next to my friend, Slug, said, “Yay,” in a firebell-clear voice just as full to the brim of sarcasm as the human soul can muster, and we all giggled, but we didn’t really say anything. What could we say? THIS GUY got paid either way for speaking, right?

I hated that advice. Actively hated it.

Twenty-five years later, I still think about that jack-wagon.

Worse still, I think I understand him now.

So, I tell you what, when you graduate, go. Leave. Get out of here. Go someplace else. Scram. I mean, there have to be at least fifty ways to leave your Woodrow. Just slip out the back, Jack. Make like a tree, and get out. (You’re singing the song in your head now, aren’t you?)

Because there’s something liberating when you pick up, blow town, and never come back.

You can go someplace where no one knows you. Where no one remembers that time you did that REALLY stupid thing. You know, that time in the fifth grade, when you did that thing, and everyone laughed, and you really can’t believe that I know about that thing, but I do, I do know about that thing, and so does everyone else here, and polite friends don’t talk about it, but true friends bring it up every time they get a chance, and it’s gotten to the point where the whole event has been summed up with one code word that turns you into a quivering mass of shame and degradation, and it’s become your nickname, your embarrassing nickname of shame and degradation. But if you leave, all that changes.

You can totally reinvent yourself.

You can be awesome.

Don’t go back to Lakewood and waste another year. It’s too easy. So, I dare you.

Go have adventures.

Go do stupid stuff.

Get your own McGhee-Stories.

I DOUBLE dare you.

And, you know, if you don’t like that advice, then STAY. Stay right here in Dallas…

BUT—promise yourself that you will pop the Lakewood bubble, and you will find out what Dallas really is all about. You stay here and learn this city. I want you to know every street, every taco truck. I want you to go to Wingfield’s at Illinois and Beckley. I want you to be on a first name basis with shopkeepers and wait staff. I want you to be on a first name basis with your dry cleaner. I want you to have a favorite bathroom stall at the DMA. I want you to learn who’s on City Council, and what their embarrassing fifth grade names are, and I want you to call them that. To their faces.

I dare you.

I double-dog-dare you.

Be awesome.

Be good, just, and virtuous.

Roll Tide.