Civic Shrubbery

I love the phrase, Civic Shrubbery.

Editorial in the Tampa Tribune.

May 29, 2005
Best Advice For Graduates: Be More Than Civic Shrubbery

Graduates might wonder why the celebration of their completion of high school or college is called a commencement. It's because you're starting a new chapter of your life.

The speeches you hear at these springboard events are full of advice from accomplished people. Graduates are told to try hard, enjoy life, believe in yourself, give back, be passionate about at least one thing, listen to your heart, find work you love, dream big, don't chicken out and don't pig out.

To the endless list of generalities belongs one more bit of advice: Whatever else you do, read your local newspaper. Know what's going on in your community. Be an engaged citizen.
Speakers through the years have often told graduates they're inheriting a broken world that needs fixing with fresh ideas. The problem is, in today's communities, too many citizens don't know what's wrong or how to go about making changes. They've disengaged from civic life.
If you do nothing else with yourself, dear graduate, dare to stray from the narrow path of self-interest now and then. Don't accept whatever comes along, as if you were just part of the scenery.

Become an asset to your neighbors by adding your opinion to the candid voices of the few informed people trying hard to make things better.

``Nothing worth knowing can be taught,'' writer Oscar Wilde observed in 1890. You'll be tempted to believe that, especially if you found school boring. But Wilde was only being clever, not correct.

Most of what you need to know can indeed be taught, and much useful teaching happens in the daily press.

What you learn from the news pages can give you the courage to speak out at local meetings, to telephone a key official, or to write a letter to the editor. It's OK to get mad, but remember to stay civil. After all, everyone makes mistakes, even those paid to get it right.

George Martin, who produced the Beatles' records, recently told a graduating class, ``The reassuring thing I have learned from working with geniuses is that no one is perfect; no one is so good that he does not need help.''

So give help, and seek it from friends and mentors.

And don't forget to laugh. Comedian Bob Newhart said in a graduation speech that soon after a big earthquake in California, someone told him, ``The traffic is stopped, but the freeways are moving.'' Laughing in the face of disaster, he says, allows us to be humble without being defeated. It ``helps distinguish us from animals.''

Animals don't call meetings. They can't figure out how to make things better. And only on a very slow day will an editor publish one of their letters.

This story can be found at: http://www.tampatrib.com/News/MGBS08UM99E.html