Column: Tales from Exit 22

You made it.

We could tell by that collective sigh of relief.

Congratulations to the graduating class of 2011.

The day you were born, your parents calculated the year that you would be graduating. They told everyone they knew about your birth. Now look at you. You have sent graduation announcements to people who haven’t heard from you since the day you were born.

When your parents see you walk across the stage today, they are seeing you taking your first step, too. They remember how they felt the first day that you went off to school. They remember because they have that same feeling today. Your parents wanted you to reach this point in your life. They never dreamed that it would arrive so quickly.

I know this day isn’t all hearts and flowers. I feel your pain. You don’t want to be here. You’ve been here. Don’t fret about your class voting you most likely to appear in your underwear on an episode of “Cops.” Hey, you’ll still be on TV. People you don’t even know will be coming to your home to eat ham sandwiches and give you money. It doesn’t get better than that. I do wish that your parents would publish the menus of the food they are serving in the newspaper so that we would know which graduations to attend first. Back to you. Remember the day in kindergarten when you couldn’t open your milk carton? Everybody laughed at you. There were rumors that you wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans. Ha! Who is laughing now?

It is my job as the commencement speaker to remind you that you are moving into a new and exciting chapter in your life. Or maybe to the next page in a coloring book. What are you going to do with the rest of your life? You don’t have a clue? That’s OK. If you knew everything, you wouldn’t have needed to go to school. Let me give you a few bits of advice. Don’t try to thank me.

Take a coat.

If you get everything you want, want everything you have.

Sometimes it is your fault.

Put off procrastinating.

Listen to music while you floss.

Don’t pick your nose while you are stopped in traffic. You never know who is watching from the next car.

Don’t smoke. You’ll put an eye out. Besides, there is no place to do that anymore.

Observe the posted speed limits and use your seatbelts.

Wake up before you want to.

Roses have thorns. Thorns have roses.

You will change the world, but please leave the good parts alone.

You will never be normal. Accept that as a fact and you will be as happy as if you were normal.

The writer, e.e. cummings, who wasn’t good at capitalizing his name, wrote, “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”

Hope for things.

If your diploma is signed, you’ve aced the course.

Wherever you go, go with your heart. “No parking” signs will keep you going.

You have amounted to a hill of beans.

Call your mother.

Ask Al

The customers of this column ask the best questions. I provide the answers.

“What is the advantage of high-definition TV?” It makes everything look bigger and wider — like everything did at your last school reunion.

“What is a skunk good at?” A skunk stinks at everything.

“You wrote that you are the baby of the family. What did your mother do all day once you started school?” Cartwheels.

“Do you think that the vibrations from the wind turbines will cause rocks to come to the surface in farm fields?” Yes. Everything else brings them to the top.

“Why did the projector cross the road?” To get to the other slide.

“Have you done any downhill skiing?” No, I have found cheaper ways to fall down.

Hartland Harold

What Hartland Harold doesn’t know, he suspects. Here are the latest headlines according to Hartland Harold.

Math use is rampant in local schools.

The “We Can Stand It If You Can” DJ Service opens for business.

The Lower Your Expectations Café asks patrons not to spit on the floor. It leaks.

The street department of the city of Two Bits looks into potholes.

Mesmerized deer found watching NASCAR on TV.

The Burp N Belch will be serving all steaks rare until the stove is working.

Eva Disaster does 3-D tattoos. The tattoos are wonderful but Eva’s problem is getting people to wear those special glasses.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.