Tim Russell (DISTANT DRONING): As we gather today to celebrate the Class of 2007, we cannot help but remember that the word 'commencement' comes from the word 'commence', meaning 'to begin', and so this is not the end of something, this is the beginning of a lifelong journey of education (FADING) as you take your place in the marketplace of ideas, toiling in quiet dignity, not for recognition, but finding simply the noble resignation, which comes to the common man, whose best friend is labor, and whose second best friend is honor, with dignity a second cousin...
Garrison Keillor: Who is this guy?
Sue Scott: No idea.
GK: Where did they find him? Probably at random out of the phone book.
SS: I think he's a writer or something.
GK: Remind me not to read anything he wrote. What a stuffed shirt. -- What is it? What's wrong?
SS: Nothing. I'm fine.
GK: Why are you crying?
SS: I'm not. I'm just sort of emotional.
GK: You're emotional about marching to your own drummer?
SS: No, I'm all right. I'm Julie by the way. Congratulations or whatever. Good Luck.
GK: I'm Sean. And same to you.
TR (DISTANT DRONING): ...As someone once said, the true mark of an educated man or woman is knowing how much you do not know, which is another way of saying that knowledge is a pursuit, it is not a material good that can be stored. It is a process and so I urge each and every one of you (FADE) to embark on a life of learning and of service to others (CONTINUE AS NEEDED UNDER).
GK: Boy, this sucks. What a blowhard. It looks like he's got about twenty pages to go.
SS: Some people brought iPods.
GK: Wish I'd thought of that. I'm supposed to be at work in an hour.
SS: Where do you work?
GK: Burger King.
SS: Oh. You an English major?
GK: Yeah. How'd you guess?
SS: Oh you just have that look. That sort of cool, rumpled look.
GK: Oh -well, that's why I majored in English - so even if you don't know anything you can sound like you do.
TR (DISTANT DRONING): ...you are all special, each and every one of you, and you have taken the path less traveled, which because you have taken it, means it is a path significantly more traveled than before, and yet each man or woman must march to the drummer whom he or she, as the case may be... (FADE, CONTINUE).
GK: So what was your major, then?
SS: Me? Chemistry.
GK: Oh.
SS: My parents wanted me to -- so I can go on to pharmacy school. My family owns a drugstore. North of here. Little town. I grew up there.
GK: Chemistry, huh? But didn't we have a class together? You look familiar.
SS: I didn't take any literature courses.
GK: No, no -- it was something else.
SS: Did you take chemistry?
GK: No. Wait. It was phy-ed.
SS: Really?
GK: Physical movement--you were in that class with me!
SS: Yes! Right! Yes!
GK: Remember? We stood in a circle and we improvised swaying in the wind?
SS: Right!
GK: And everybody lay on the floor and with their arms and legs up like grass. And then I was the mower and I came along and --
SS: You mowed my grass.
GK: Yes.
SS: I remember.
GK: So do I.
TR (DRONING): And what is life if we don't use it to try to make a difference and not to accept the world as we find it but to go out there and light a candle and try to leave it a better place than the world we found (FADING) and that is my challenge to you, the Class of 2007, as you go forth in this time and place to commence, or to begin, your journey of learning -- I challenge you not to accept things as they are but to dare to dream and to dare, as Henry David Thoreau said so many years ago and yet his wisdom is as pertinent today as it was then -- to dare to march to your own drummer and (CONTINUE AS NEEDED)
SS: I loved that course. It was such a break from organic chemistry.
GK: I can imagine.
SS: I hate chemistry.
GK: Really?
SS: I hate the smell of it.
GK: But I guess you need it to be a pharmacist.
SS: I hate the idea of pharmacy. It's my family's idea, not mine. They've been planning this since I was a kid. It's nothing I wanted.
GK: No?
SS: I'm only doing it to make them happy. The drug store's been in our family for 80 years. They're all thrilled. I feel like killing myself.
GK: That's terrible.
SS: That's life, right? I mean what am I going to do?
(TR DRONING IN SWEDISH)
GK: I don't understand a word he's saying. What is he talking about? -- Why are you crying?
SS: You're the first person I ever told how I feel about chemistry. Would you do me a favor?
GK: Sure.
SS: Hold my hand.
GK: Okay.
SS: Wow. It feels so good to connect with another human being.
GK: You've got to do what you want to do, Julie. It's your life.
SS: It's too late! I'm a chemistry major.
GK: It's never too late.
SS: But it is too late! I've been accepted to pharmacy school--
GK: Let me take you away from this. Come on. Let's go.
SS: Where?
GK: Come away with me.
SS: Now?
GK: Yes!
SS: I can't.
GK: Yes, you can.
SS: I worked four years for this degree. I have to graduate.
GK: It was a mistake. Come. Be free.
TR (DRONING): And so I say unto you, Class of 2007, follow your heart. Dare to dream. Dare to step away from the crowd and follow that still small voice of conscience. Dare to innovate. Dare to be alive. (FADING) I believe it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said-- What lies behind us and lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us...(CONTINUE AS NEEDED)
SS: You know you make me feel so -- so --
GK: Alive?
SS: You have such a way with words.
GK: I'm an English major.
SS: Just thinking about picking up and walking away from it-I've never felt this alive before. Touch me.
GK: Come Julie. Forget about prescription medications. We'll start a life together. Just you and me. What do you say?
SS: But my parents are here-- we're supposed to go to dinner tonight--
GK: What dorm are you in?
SS: Sanford.
GK: I'll pick you up in a half an hour. Green hatchback. Wisconsin plates.
SS: Wisconsin plates? You're not from Wisconsin, are you?
GK: It doesn't matter.
(A BEAT)
SS: I have to think about this for a minute.
GK (QUICKLY): Let's go Julie, let's just go now--
SS: You're not a Green Bay Packers fan, are you? You cheer for Packers?
(A LONG BEAT)
GK: It's not important.
SS: I don't know, Sean, this is so sudden.
GK: We need each other.
SS: Do you hunt and kill deer?
GK: It doesn't matter now. We have to live our lives-
SS: How much cheese do you eat in an average week?
GK: Let's just go, Julie. We'll find a new life together.
SS: Well-ok.
GK: Half an hour?
SS: Half an hour.
GK (SINGS):
There's a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us.
Beer and bratwurst in the air
Cole slaw too
Somewhere.
SS:
There's a time for us,
Today's the time for us,
I won't worry about my hair
What to wear -- I don't care.
Some day!
BOTH:
Somewhere.
We'll enjoy all we have gotten,
Meat and potatoes au gratin
Somewhere ...
There's a place for us,
A time and place for us.
Homes are cheap if they need repair
We'll have kids and be happy there
Eau Claire
Eau Claire
Eau Claire