With my cap, gown, and free mug, I've graduated

I walked down the pavement to the front door of the bookstore. This is it, I thought. I'm going to buy my cap and gown - those mighty vestiges of change; those symbols of transition and adulthood; those markers of the final, ultimate step from youth to adulthood. The cap and gown.

I savored the feeling. For the first time all year, I was actually excited about graduation. I had picked up the graduation tickets for my family. The reservations for the restaurant were already set. But nothing came close to buying the cap and gown.

I mean, here I was, about to purchase the very items I'd be wearing on the day of my graduation. Once I bought the cap and gown, there was no turning back. Sure, I had finished my last class and taken my last final, but what did that mean? I had taken a million classes and a thousand finals before. There would only be one cap and gown. Just like there would only be one graduation.

I walked nonchalantly into the store. I'm not sure what I expected to find. I knew there wouldn't be a spotlight shining on the cap and gown as they were luxuriously displayed in a golden case. But I expected ... well, something. Something more than I found, anyway.

Chris Farah Farah's Faucet

A short, stocky man walked towards me, sizing me up. "How tall are you?" I was slightly taken aback by the unceremonious approach.

"Umm ... about 5-foot-9?" I stammered.

He picked up a package out of a pile of approximately one-zillion seemingly identical packages. He handed it to me, then quickly snatched up a cap from another immense pile.

"One size fits all. Elastic in the back. Bachelors?"

"What?"

"Bachelors degree?"

"Uhh ... yeah."

"What school?"

"English."

He grabbed a white tassel from a huge rack and shoved it into my hands, barely making eye contact. He brushed by me and pulled a blue mug out of a stack of approximately one-zillion blue mugs. He handed it to me.

"Free mug."

I stood there bewildered. "Is that it?"

"That's it."

I paid my $27 - credit card, of course - and left with my cap and gown. No trumpets sounded. "We are the Champions" didn't play in the background. No confetti streamed forth from the ceiling. No one shook my hand or even told me congratulations.

Was this what the real world would be like? Was this what graduation was all about? Nameless? Surrounded by people who didn't care? Who would take whatever you had to give them, leaving you with barely a pat on the back?

I went to commencement Saturday. The sky was gray. Before I walked down the steps to my seat in the gigantic stadium, a photographer hired by the University took my picture. Next in line, please. Click. Move on. I shuffled my feet down the stairway. The crowd was immense; I couldn't find my family among them.

Then I looked around me. My friends were sitting next to me. Even people around me I didn't know smiled at me. People laughed and hugged each other. Someone even cracked open a bottle of champagne and passed it around.

We were graduating. We were done with four or more years of work. And we did it together.

I went home after it was all over, and I cracked open my own bottle of champagne. I poured it into the generic free mug from the bookstore, and I gulped it down, loving every last drop.

- E-mail Chris Farah at cjfarah@umich.edu.

05-05-98