Congrats, graduate! It’s that time of year when bald guys like me wonder what lies ahead on your superhighway to success. Let’s see
You’re going to set the world on fire, right? Check. Write the Great American Novel? Check. Knock ’em dead on Broadway? Check.
Cure cancer? Chill global warming? Negotiate world peace? Walk on Mars?
Talk on ESPN? Check, check, check.
Hold it!
Time for a reality check, kiddo. These lofty aspirations you leave this Ivy Tower with will disappear after you start real life. Pay exorbitant rent for a kitchenette? Check. Work for a sleazeball boss? Check. Pour your measly paycheck into your gas tank? Check. Celebrate Friday with your co-workers by leaving your necktie or high heels at home. Talk about success!
Every spring, you 20-somethings in black gowns Frisbee your funny-looking caps skyward with the exuberance that old bald guys like me snort at. Go ahead. Keep your eye on the sparrow and see what happens. Wait until reality kicks in. We could tell you stories. You think we didn’t have dreams once?
Long time ago, I knew a Pulitzer Prize had my name on it. Seriously.
Maybe not at age 27, but some day, fame and fortune would have to be mine. Big city newspaper readers would love me, the hardest working journalist to ever cover Chicago.
Mike Royko would often invite me for a cheeseburger at Billygoat’s Tavern, but I’d have to take a rain check because my editor wanted to fly me to Africa to write about AIDS doctors, or to Vietnam to interview MIAs in the jungle. Wherever I was going, Royko and his pals would be waiting to hear of my escapades on behalf of the Fourth Estate.
Like most college grads, I just wanted to put a spit-shine on the beat-up world somehow. I didn’t want to be rich, and wasn’t disappointed either.
As things turned out, my role in the world of journalism proved to be much smaller than I had figured on. For 20 years, I wrote for newspapers in rural towns, and Rustbelt cities where regular folks spilled their morning coffee on my words. I worked hard and had fun, too. OK, so Royko ended up dying before we ever met. And I never made it to Africa or Vietnam.
But I got to write about Americans with AIDS, and Viet vets with PTSD.
I could tell you stories. An old man in a Cornhuskers sweatshirt struggles to hold back tears when his family farm sells for peanuts at auction. A blue-collar worker in Illinois gives the keys to his house back to the bank after his factory shuts down.
A young woman is holed up in an Ohio motel since her boyfriend split when their child was born with multiple handicaps. She loves her baby so much, she just smiles at me. A middle-aged couple invites me into their house to talk about their son, who was killed the night before in a drunk driving wreck. In grief, they can hardly speak. They let me touch the baseball glove he’ll never wear again.
Those were a few of the people I was honored to meet in a long, if not exactly illustrious career in journalism. Each of them typified the American spirit. “Can’t give up,” the Nebraska farmer told me. “Don’t know how.”
My stories were crude attempts to let the world know about them. There was no Pulitzer. I came to terms with that long ago. These days, I get to teach college students how to cover the news. Some of you graduate this month with high aspirations. I’ll be tickled pink if any of you win a Pulitzer some day.
But don’t sweat it. There are plenty of ways to set the world on fire. Work your tail off, be kind to strangers and good luck.
Eric Sandstrom teaches at Mesa State College in the Mass Communication program.
