Column: Cause for celebration

Perhaps you will dress up, don a tie, or shave some stubbly part of your body.

You may travel a great distance, sitting in a car for hours wearing pantyhose, or packed into an airplane with a dress that wrinkles easily in the overhead compartment under someone’s rollaway.

Once you arrive you will stand with friends and family at an outdoor event, possibly in a broiling sun, or huddled under an enormous umbrella against the rain.

If you’re lucky, you’ll be offered a white wooden folding chair with the back angled against your spine like a karate chop.

June is prime time for the rites of passage; weddings and graduations certainly, but also engagements, birthdays and baby showers. Can all this trouble and expense possibly be worth it?

At my sister’s wedding ceremony decades ago, the groom addressed this question in his remarks to the assembled guests. The nuptials, which took place in a sandy clearing outside my parents’ home on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, was a small affair except for the mosquitoes.

Horst, who has now been my brother-in-law for 25 years, read to us from Goethe: “It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.”

He went on to say that perhaps a wedding is not really cause for celebration, but just a first step.

This came as a jolt to those of us who had traveled far to come to the edge of a snake-infested swamp to witness the step. After the ceremony, excellent pastries and cakes were served, baked by Horst’s mother, and all was good.

Actually, I think my brother-in-law is exactly right, and that’s why I enjoy graduations more than weddings and christenings and much more than a bris. Graduations celebrate real accomplishment. The person I honor with my presence has earned it by completing a complex series of tasks over years that now result in a diploma. Definitely worth celebrating.

Schools recognize the significance of graduation ceremonies and will take steps to see that deserving students and their families don’t miss out on an important rite. At my oldest son’s college graduation, we were delighted to see his freshman year roommate receive a diploma, which he showed off at the reception. “I have to get this back to the registrar by 5,” he said. “I still have a few credits to complete this summer.”

Some graduating seniors avail themselves of a large audience of friends and family to express themselves. Nick Petrella, who works at Bella Vita Pizza on summer weekends, has cultivated a reputation as a serial pants-free graduate. His mother Robbin reported that during his high school graduation, he was wearing pants in the processional but skillfully removed them when he was seated, under the eyes of the chaperones posted at the end of the rows of prospective graduates.

His brother alerted the rest of the family via text message that Nick was not wearing pants. By then, word of Nick’s missing wardrobe item had gone viral, and every graduating senior was witness to his transverse of the stage, wearing only the traditional robe and boxers, (and a tie of course) to accept his diploma. He put pants back on after taking his seat. Nick repeated his signature move for his college graduation four years later.

Part of what makes graduations so satisfying is being able to celebrate, in addition to the hard work of the graduate, your own contributions to the prize. Whether you are a dad thinking of the many nights you drilled your 6th grader on spelling words like “conscience,” “conscientious” and “contemptible,” or a grandma reflecting on a savings account drained by personal checks to the Office of the Bursar, the graduates’ families get bragging rights for the time, money and moral support that made graduation day possible.

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, over three million people will graduate from high school in the United States this year. Nineteen of them are from the Shelter Island High School. This year’s class is an accomplished group of people who plan to go forth and study everything from diesel mechanics to microbiology.

As the seniors look back at their high school experience in the pages of this newspaper, it’s the teachers who fired them up who they have publicly thanked; Mr. Brace, Mr. Brennan, Mr. Brigham, Ms. Galasso, Mr. Miedema, Mr. Mundy, Mr. Theinert, Mrs. Treharne, and Mr. Williams.

Now that’s worth dressing up for.