By the end of this month, hundreds of thousands of high school students will have gone through the time-honored ritual of commencement.

At first blush, the word “commencement” seems to be an oxymoron. Why do we call it “commencement” when it denotes the completion of 13 years of schooling?

My Summit Hill High School Class of 1957 motto explains why perfectly. “Not finished, just begun.” It’s the “commencement” of the rest of a graduate’s life.

At one of the three commencements at which I was keynote speaker, I started with a quote from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, saying, “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here.” Little did Lincoln know when he said it that he was wrong; I, on the other hand, was right. I had no illusions that my pearls of wisdom would be remembered by graduates.

Selected members of the graduating class - usually honor students or class presidents - school officials and sometimes guest speakers have spent enormous amounts of time trying to come up with just the right words that they hoped would inspire members of the Class of 2021.

This became even more important since most of our area schools were conducting in-person commencements rather than the pandemic-induced ceremonies of a year ago when they were done for the most part either virtually or in a drive-up manner such as those at Pocono Raceway.

The speakers must compete with all sorts of distractions - babies crying, people shuffling in and out of the facility, people texting on their cellphones, beach balls being punched around by mischievous graduates or just plain inattention and indifference.

Years ago, commencement was a dignified event. There was no yelling or screaming when a student’s name was announced. Mostly everyone dressed the part befitting the occasion; today, try as they might to ensure decorum, school officials do the best that they can, but it is a losing battle.

Through it all, however, the symbolism is not lost. It is a clearly defined phase of life coming to an end. The majority of graduates will go off to college, where about half will succeed; some will enlist in our armed services, while others will try to land a job with a high school education. Some will surprise; some will disappoint.

In attending several dozen commencements in my lifetime, I have come to the conclusion that these events are just as important, if not more so, for the parents and grandparents of the graduates.

I don’t envy administrators’ angst with commencement. They are on constant alert for Murphy’s Law descending upon the proceedings - “whatever can go wrong will.” As a matter of fact, they approach commencement time with a mixture of joy and suppressed terror.

Whether it involves senior shenanigans where graduates blow off steam with misguided pranks, or trying to get seniors to show up at commencement rehearsals and take them seriously, or whether it involves illegal drinking celebrations or other illicit activities in and around the school, administrators hold their collective breath and pray that they can get through the end of the school year without a major incident.

As for the commencement exercises themselves, administrators put on a brave face, because, here, too, there are potential pitfalls. They range from the ubiquitous beach balls, which some students smuggle into the ceremony, ill-advised messages on mortarboards, obscene gestures or backward flips on stage, it all adds up to high tension.

The behavior of some audience members is also a source of frustration as they scream and carry on as their child or relative gets his or her diploma. As far as the announcement, “Please hold your applause until all graduates have received their diplomas, so each name can be heard distinctly,” well, the emcee might as well save his or her breath.

The one area where administrators do exert control with an iron fist is the content of the commencement addresses, usually delivered by the class valedictorian, salutatorian and president.

Doonesbury creator Gary Trudeau famously observed that commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing graduates should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.