Deja Vu, a Generation Later
by Karen Williams | May 26, 2005
Seminole Chronicle
When my kids were learning math, I told them to think of it as a game, a fun puzzle. I encouraged them to be "Math Man," a caped crusader zooming around the planet finding answers to problems and solving equations.
My older son, Smitty, bumped it up a notch. Years later, following marriage and a stint in the Army, he enrolled at the University of Florida majoring in mathematics. The very names of his courses, such as Binary Algebraic Multi-Trigonometric Calculus, could give cold chills.
Graduation day arrived, and as our family entered the O'Connell Center, my eyes grew moist. Such a ceremony evokes emotion in a parent, especially when realizing a family of nine could be fed for the price of one textbook.
The undergrads, in black caps and gowns, filed in - 1,200 of them in the college of liberal arts and sciences. After a greeting from the dean, some students gave speeches illustrious for being mercifully brief. Then all students, organized by academic departments, filed to the platform to receive their degrees. As only a mother can do, I bulldozed my way through a crowd and hung from a balcony to get a photo of Smitty. This moment had cost gazillions of dollars, and I was prepared to risk life and limb for a perfect camera angle.
Returning to my seat, I experienced a flashback from my own college senior year in Indiana. It was 1971, and protest was in the air. It was also in the dorms, library and administration building. We began by speaking out against the war in Vietnam and things took off from there. We grumbled over being graded. We rebelled against attending classes. We lashed out about the lack of peace candles in the dining hall. We protested that not enough people were protesting and that the ones who were protesting lacked oomph. Perhaps it gave new meaning to Shakespeare's "The lady doth protest too much."
As graduation approached, we informed the college we would not participate in the establishment ritual of wearing caps and gowns. So June 13 found us receiving our diplomas while dressed in ratty jeans, tattered bell-bottoms and protest banners. It was an intense time, a radical time, a time to disdain anyone who lacked the moral rectitude to attend Woodstock.
As Smitty found us in the crowd after his graduation, I returned to the present and saw my son in a new light.
"Look at you!" I exclaimed. "You've become a minion of convention, a puppet of conformity. You've sold out to the military-industrial complex, and I'm really bummed out!"
Smitty looked dumbfounded.
"I bet you've never staged a boycott or even chained yourself to a building," I accused. "If you want a graduation gift, you must change your vibes."
And that's how it all came about: the photos that I now cherish. One shows a wary Smitty on the football field by the "Keep off the Grass" sign; another an apprehensive Smitty in the stadium by the "No Trespassing" sign. Yet another pictures a semi-brave Smitty, in cap and gown, splashing around in the landmark University of Florida fountain, virtually begging the campus cops to remove him in shackles.
Well, it wasn't exactly a march on Washington, but he's learning. And it all adds up to one proud parent: me.
Far-out.
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Copyright 2005, Karen Williams
