Congratulations to the South Portland and Cape
Elizabeth high school class of 2007. Graduation for both schools will
take place on Sunday. Weather permitting, the ceremony for South
Portland’s graduating seniors will begin at 4 p.m. and take place at
the football field behind the high school. The Cape Elizabeth Class of
2007 will hold their ceremony at Fort William’s Park at 2 p.m.

    Somehow, both invitations to speak at the ceremonies
we expected to receive have apparently been lost, so we will save the
full speech for next year. Too bad, It was a peach.

    But we will touch on the essential theme, which we believe to be timeless.

    Get out.

    Go.

    Move out of your house; flee your town; vacate the
state; relocate out of the region; get a passport and  leave the
country.

    We don’t mean forever, just long enough to get a
different perspective. For some of you that plan is well in the works
as you prepare for the next four years (or more) at an out-of-state
college. For the rest of you, trust me, you won’t regret it. If your
plans for the next four years involve a school within four hours of
your house, spend the summer someplace else.

    “But I’ve got to work,” you say.

    “Then work,” we say. There are jobs just about
everywhere and in a lot of those places quite a few jobs  pay
better than here.

    And if you are graduating and don’t have any plans
to take another class ever again, our advice is especially directed at
you. You can show your pride in Maine by not adding to the already high
proportion of under-skilled, under-educated citizens in our workforce.
Hopefully, by the time you return you will understand that going to
class isn’t the worst thing in the world and the opportunities to
correct this misguidance will have increased.

    But if you do take our advice, stick around until
Tuesday when you can vote on the state bond referendum, which will
ensure their are jobs for the skilled and unskilled alike and expand
those opportunities for more Mainers to get the college education that
is so essential today.

–Ward Peck