The Buckeye State: My Speech to the Graduates

From Menletter June 2007

By Tim Baehr

So. Here I was, age ten or so, standing at the top of the steps of the Methodist Church in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Four older boys were standing at the bottom, holding buckeyes.

Let me tell you about buckeyes. Ohio is lousy with buckeye trees, hence the moniker "Buckeye State." The nuts look a little like chestnuts - round, shiny brown, but with a white spot that makes them look like they eye of a buck deer. And unlike chestnuts, they're bitter and poisonous. Even the squirrels prefer not to eat them. They're good mostly for drilling holes in to string together, and as missiles to chuck at scared little kids.

The thing about being pinned against the front door of the church was that I felt totally helpless. The other boys knew it, too, taunting me and saying, "This one has your name on it" just before launching it at me. One of them hit me in the chest, and for a couple years I had a lump behind my left nipple. I never told anyone about it.

The barrage and the taunting kept up for what seemed like hours but was probably about ten minutes. The boys finally got bored or ran out of ready ammunition, and I proceeded home in tears and shame.

So. Here most of you are at the top of the Methodist church steps, with the bullies of the world chucking buckeyes at you. Here are just a few of the things you have to dodge, or take full force. They're the things that this world is handing over to you as its future occupants:

AIDS. Preemptive war. Genocide. Huge deficits. Declining dollar. Outsourcing. Fat cats earning mega-millions while the real wage for most workers goes down. Fifty-percent divorce rate. Obesity epidemic. Global warming - oops, climate change. Spinning of truth into convenient, plausible lies. Media-generated fear of putting anything into our mouths, and industry-generated fake food products. Multinational corporations' control of the media and politicians.

A few of you have been trained, or will be trained, to stand at the bottom of the steps tormenting the rest of you. A few more will be trained to gather more buckeyes.

And the majority will stand at the top of the steps, bravely or not, but mostly crying and desperate simply to go home.

And I hope I'm scaring the crap out of you.

So. What are you supposed to do with all this - this horrid inheritance from a tiny minority of your elders, who should have known better but didn't?

A few of you - very few - will have the vision and courage to throw the buckeyes back at the tormenters, or simply to walk down the steps and throttle the bastards, take away their buckeyes, and pitch them into the sewer. You will be the political and moral leaders of tomorrow, perhaps playing the game long enough to acquire the power and resources to try to change the country or even the world - if the world doesn't corrupt you first. Be careful. Most of you don't know what the hell you're getting into if you try to play with the big boys.

What are the rest of you going to do, stuck as easy targets at the top of the steps? Unlike my tormentors five or so decades ago, yours won't be getting bored or running out of ammo very soon.

How about nothing - or close to nothing, in the context of the national or world stage. To go any further with this, I have to invite you out of the buckeye metaphor, out of Chagrin Falls, and back into this space.

If you read or watch even some of the daily news, you'll know that very few of us can have any direct effect on the events of the world - or our country - or even our state. We may, some of us, be able to affect local events by organizing, letter-writing, or even running for office. But what most of the news gives us is a voyeuristic thrill, and then a feeling of utter powerlessness and ineffectual rage. Frankly, for you new grads and us old folks alike, I don't think it's very healthy. You do nothing because you can do nothing. You might as well make doing nothing a conscious choice. You might even choose to limit your exposure to the news media.

Does this leave you totally impotent in dealing with the load of crap you're inheriting? Two paragraphs ago I said "close to nothing." Even close to nothing will be a challenge for you, I promise.

First, you need to vote. Early and often, but not in the same election. However much we may think (and perhaps rightly) that the last couple of presidential elections were stolen, they couldn't have been stolen without their being close enough to be tipped by a few voters who chose to stay home. Nearly every clueless, crooked, corrupt, shoot-'em-in-the face politician in office was put there by voters. So were the good ones. Even the appointed hacks were appointed by elected officials. Think of how little it costs you to vote: an hour or two once every couple of years. If you think your vote doesn't count, look down at the bottom of the steps at the jackasses throwing the buckeyes at you. Most are elected officials or the kajillionaires who control them.

Second, you need to know what and whom to vote for. This means exposing yourself to as much information as you need to, to be sure, and lending a critical eye and ear to the task. Most of us know when we're being had - we just look the other way. The effort to inform yourselves is minimal, and the reward potentially great. It may take decades to stop or reverse some of the awful things headed your way, and you might as well start now. If you want to give money to candidates and causes, that's fine. But start with knowledge.

Third, you need to encourage, or change if need be, the people you can influence. Start with yourself. Then your family, especially your kids or nieces and nephews. And this may be the biggest challenge of all: trying to media-proof and advertisement-proof and propaganda-proof and inform ourselves and the people we love so that we all can think for ourselves and lead kind, thoughtful lives. Your personal integrity, and the integrity you teach, are what will save your generation and the generations to come.

Let's leave the Buckeye State as Ohio's nickname and not a metaphor for the state of the world.