WHAT’S SO FUNNY:Not too late to graduate

The dream deferred can nag at you. Maybe you said you’d go to Bali and didn’t. Maybe you always intended to jump out of a plane someday and here you still are, waiting till it lands.

The task begun and left unfinished is worse. You were going to lose 10 pounds, but you lost four and then lost interest. You started to clean out the garage, but something came up and now every time you look in there you feel like a slacker.

When you do manage to complete one of these endeavors, the boost in self-esteem is disproportionate --- you feel better than the achievement calls for, because it took so long.

Some people graduate college in four years; some of us take 40.

As I mentioned once here previously, I should have earned my diploma from Knox College in June of 1971, but what with one drink and another, I came up three courses short.

At the time, it was only a medium disappointment to me. I was a theater major and figured it wouldn’t affect my chances to become the playwright David Mamet eventually became. But it was a crushing disappointment to my mother, who was, well, a mother.

My dad wasn’t pleased, either. It was as if he’d raised, fed and pampered a foal through training all the way to Santa Anita and out of the starting gate, only to see him hit the home stretch and start to graze.

I got a job and years went by, and my parents were able to take some pride in what I did accomplish. But that unfinished task was always back there, to nag at me at odd times … like when I was asleep.

Last summer and fall I went to Saddleback Community College for the credits I lacked. It was a little late for Mom and Dad, but the only other choice was “never.”

My grades from the fall term aren’t official yet, but it looks like I’ll graduate in the Knox class of 2007, and this is a big year because our commencement speaker will be Bill Clinton. I’m stoked. I think hearing him will encourage me as I embark on adult life.

The former president will receive an honorary degree, making him the second U.S. President so honored by Knox (Abraham Lincoln was the first). So Bill and I may be getting our sheepskins together.

To those who graduated in four years, my accomplishment will seem underwhelming. But anyone who ever took the long way around to finish something knows: The longer the wait, the bigger the deal. And I have to say it feels good to clean out this particular garage.

Now for that career.