My Address—and Apology—to Yale

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John Zoiner / Getty Images Class Day speaker and Daily Beast columnist Christopher Buckley wishes Yale graduates every success as they enter that never-ending graduate school called life—and offers up a long overdue mea culpa for dropping an F-bomb during his own graduation.

I’m tickled, and a bit nervous, to find myself standing here today. As Mark Twain once said, facing a large, intimidating audience, “Homer’s dead, Shakespeare’s dead, and I myself am not feeling at all well.”

I’m especially glad to find myself here today since it gives me the opportunity to make a long overdue apology.

On this day, over 30 years ago, I stood right here on this very spot in the capacity of class historian.

Life used to imitate John le Carré novels. Now it imitates Tom Clancy novels. As an English major, I’m not sure this represents progress.

My speech concluded by quoting a bit of graffiti that I had found in the men’s room of the Cross Campus—now Bass—Library. A bathroom stall is, yes, an odd place to find inspiration, but it seemed perfectly to sum up the very essence of the Class of 1975. So I felt I had no choice but to quote it verbatim.

The problem was that its punchline contained a certain four-letter word beginning with the letter that designates a failing grade.

Here it is, in a cleaned-up version: God didn’t create the world in seven days. He [effed] off for six days and pulled an all-nighter.

Well. There was this gasp—the sound of all the oxygen in Old Campus being rapidly sucked into 8,000 lungs. One owner of those lungs was my dear old dad, Class of 1950. The next day, he presented me with my graduation present—a typewriter, four of whose keys had been removed.

So I’d like to start off today, 34 years later, by formally apologizing to God, country, and Yale for my appalling lapse of lux and veritas on that otherwise lovely May day. Or, as we say in Washington, “My prior statement is inoperative.”

This afternoon, you will hear only the refined and lofty sentiments typical of a Yale English major.

Whether I have anything like wisdom to impart is another matter. As a witty movie critic wrote about a non-masterpiece he had just watched, “It is like A River Runs Through It, only there is no river. And nothing is running through it.”

Apart from the profane graffiti, the story that to me best sums up my time here took place on the eve of the Harvard game, in 1975.

The day before, Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the longtime dictator of Spain, had finally died after an interminable illness. Some people have terminal illnesses—Franco had an interminable illness.

Seizing the moment, three plucky Yalies got a ladder and bucket of paint and roller brush and climbed up on top of the building that’s now the Barnes & Noble bookstore on Broadway. They painted over a huge billboard in giant letters:

November 20—Franco
November 21—Harvard

On reaching the sidewalk, they were accosted by the New Haven police. They were duly frisked and thrown up against the wall. At which point the arresting officer said, “OK, which one of you guys is Franco?”

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May 24, 2009 | 8:23pm

Francisco Franco, Development Office, Buckley Graduation Speech, Buckley Yale Class Day, Buckley Yale, English Major, Old Campus, Commencement Speech, Graduation Speech, Yale University, Mark Twain, Princeton, Buckley Daily Beast, Shakespeare, Harvard, Barack Obama, Education, Christopher Buckley

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BeastofBourbon

Very nice address, Mr. Buckley. I'll bet the class of ought-nine was grateful to have you speak to them. Hope they laughed at hearing this address as much as I did reading it and gave you a proper standing ovation.

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My Address—and Apology—to Yale

My Address—and Apology—to Yale