On the virtues of tolerable graduation ceremonies, avoiding Beach Week debauchery, and embracing Taylor Swift (vol. xxvii, no. 6)

Dear Family,

Certain relatives (and my old friend Colby Jenkins) might be interested to learn that I just signed up to run the St. George Marathon on October 7.

Why would someone travel more than 2,000 miles just to run a marathon?

I’m so glad you asked! I have completed 13 marathons in my life¹ — all of them since turning 40 and all of them in either D.C. (5), Maryland (4), Delaware (3), or Virginia (1). It’s time I branched out. There’s also the little-known fact that I am probably related to more runners living in Southern Utah than in any other place — someone there is bound to have some insider information to share with me. 

I am also attracted to the idea of racing in a place with a near-zero chance of humidity and curious to find out what it’s like to run down a mountain. (The race starts at 5,240 feet and finishes at 2,680 feet.) I’m assuming this will be harder than it sounds, and there look to be some significant uphill kickers on the way down. But I also don’t expect to see many people lining up to run it the other direction. 

I have not yet worked out any of the travel logistics. And so if anyone reading this who happens to live in, I don’t know, say, Cedar City, felt inclined to offer to drive me to the start line so I don’t have to ride the official race bus up the mountain from St. George at 4 a.m. and stand around in the freezing cold for two hours waiting for the race to start, I would probably take them up on that. (And if not, hey, that’s okay too!)

But enough about me (for now). I mostly want to talk about …

Grace

I actually enjoyed Grace’s high school graduation ceremony earlier this month.

I’ll let you read that last sentence again to allow it to sink in. A statement like that could reasonably cause anyone who knows me well to question the authorship of this entire letter. But I assure you that I wrote it and that I meant it. I believe Crystal, Ari, and Sophie, if asked, would all characterize my behavior throughout the entire 2½ hours as unusually well tempered and well mannered (for me, anyway). I honestly don’t recall complaining about anything.

I have given some thought to what might have contributed to my uncharacteristically civil behavior. Knowing that this would be the last graduation ceremony I was parentally obligated to sit through might have had something to do with it. There’s also the outside chance that, at age 51, I might finally be on the verge of growing up. But, in reality, I just couldn’t find anything to dislike about it.

Here were my favorite parts: 

• The Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish. We did it in English, too, and while I generally find the Pledge a little hokey – Sorry. – listening to a compatriot recite it in a language other than mine, even though I couldn’t understand most of the words, lent special meaning to the phrase one nation indivisible. It made me cry a little.

• The commencement speaker was none other than George Pelecanos. (Yes, that George Pelecanos!) Okay, I hadn’t heard of him, either. But Google him, and you’ll learn about a prolific author and television writer/producer who grew up in our neighborhood (on Caddington Ave.), graduated from Northwood High School, and still lives here in Silver Spring because, to quote from his wonderfully self-effacing and encouraging five-minute² address, “We like it here.” It was a refreshing departure from the bloviating politicians I have been subjected to at past graduations. If someone were interested in actually uniting the country, they could propose a constitutional amendment barring elected officials from speaking at commencement ceremonies. I think that’s something all of us could get behind.

• All the other speakers, mainly selected from among the senior class, were fabulous. They were brief, which probably contributes somewhat to my “fabulous” assessment, but they were also just legitimately quite good – and reflective of the remarkable diversity of a school at which white kids like Grace account for something like 13 percent of the student body.

• DAR Constitution Hall, despite its utter lack of parking (as in none, zero – seriously, either take an Uber or wear comfortable shoes) might be the perfect venue for a graduation. It’s also just a couple blocks from some fairly well known landmarks. 

Grace’s seminary graduation came two days later. I can’t speak to how it went because, in my latest effort to further bolster my Father of the Year credentials, I didn’t go.

Seminary graduation conflicted with one of the Washington D.C. Temple Choir’s summer pops concerts. I suppose a good father would have blown off the concert in favor of his child’s thing. But while the baritone section would have gotten along fine without me, I was also one of the accompanists. (Both of the other accompanists are better pianists than I, but they still let me play the piano for three of the numbers and an instrument called a melodica on a fourth.) And so while virtually no one (perhaps including Grace) noticed that I missed seminary graduation, my absence from the concert would have been rather conspicuous.

Having attended upwards of 20 seminary graduations in my life, and assuming this one went more or less like every previous one I have attended, I expect it differed from Grace’s high school graduation in that 1) everything about seminary graduation, from the remarks to the manner in which the diplomas were handed out, was largely (and obviously) unrehearsed and unscripted, 2) little to no effort was made to ensure the seminary graduates’ names were pronounced correctly, and 3) the number of people invited to shake the hands of the seminary graduates as they received their diplomas greatly exceeded both the number of graduates and the functional capacity of the stand, resulting in a comical arrangement of people that starts off resembling a line near the podium before gradually devolving into a clown-car mass of humanity over by the sacrament table as everyone in the chapel comes to the realization (just as they did last year and the year before that and the year before that…) that there really isn’t enough room up there for all those people.

Again, I didn’t actually attend seminary graduation this year, so I’m just working from memory here. I suppose it’s possible that the new stake presidency has taken steps to rectify some of this, but I doubt it. Why mess with tradition? On the plus side, seminary graduation typically runs less than an hour, so it’s got that going for it.

I should say that this is not meant as a dig at anyone in particular. Virtually every seminary graduation I’ve ever attended has gone something like this, including several that I had a hand in organizing. It just always makes me laugh a little.

Grace drove directly from seminary graduation on Sunday night to Ocean City, where her friends had already begun their observance of … 

Beach Week

Beach Week, which I am given to understand is primarily an East Coast thing,³ is a rite of passage of sorts in which newly minted high school (and sometimes college) graduates flock to nearby seaside locales to exercise their newly realized agency. Alcohol is often involved and parents almost never are.

So, 18 year olds plus alcohol minus parents. You don’t need to be especially clairvoyant to predict where this sometimes leads. Beach Week, you may recall, had something of a national moment during the Senate confirmation hearings of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett “I like beer” Kavanaugh (who, coincidentally, grew up and went to high school here in Montgomery County). Many of the most serious accusations lodged against Justice Kavanaugh were alleged to have happened at Beach Week.

What kind of horrible parents would “let” their “child” go to something like that?

Grace’s parents, apparently. 

None of Grace’s older siblings expressed any interest in Beach Week. As our family’s lone extrovert, however, it was not surprising that Grace wanted to go. She assured us that not everyone at Beach Week engages in the kind of debauchery I was concerned about, that she was mostly just going to be hanging out with three or four friends (whom I know and like – Grace has really nice friends) and that I didn’t have anything to worry about.

And so she went. It sounds like she had a pleasant time and avoided trouble. She came home safely a week later and I’m glad that’s over.

She’s attending her final Young Women’s Camp this week, where I don’t expect she’ll encounter any illicit drinking (or any licit drinking, for that matter). Hopefully the weather’s holding up there as well as it did for the …

Taylor Swift “Eras” Concert

Grace’s early summer of awesomeness also included a quick jaunt over to Pittsburgh with her Aunt Jess and cousins Afton and Clara to see T-Swizzle live for the first time.

They made the four-hour drive to Pittsburgh on Saturday morning, spent the day exploring the city, watched the concert, which sounds like it started right around my bed time, left the stadium when it ended sometime after midnight, stayed at a hotel about an hour outside of Pittsburgh and drove the rest of the way home on Sunday morning. It sounds like they had a lot of fun, but just thinking about it makes me tired.

Grace picked up a hoodie for me. They only had them in size XXXL, so the pocket hits me down around the crotch but I was moved by the kind (and expensive) gesture.

On those rare occasions when she’s in town, Grace is working at the pool around the corner as an operator and lifeguard. Speaking of…

Work

Ari is back working as a Kids After Hours camp counselor. This is the same company for which Ari works during the school year providing before- and after-school care for students at Forest Knolls Elementary School. During the summer, this expands to an all-day “KAH Explorers” program where Ari and other counselors accompany the children on adventures to various destinations around the area.

It looks like a pretty fun job (if you like kids, as Ari does). I imagine more details will be forthcoming in Ari’s Epistolarius, which I am told is in production.

I have two college interns working for me this summer. One is a niece of the CEO and the other is Sophie. (Some employers shy away from even the appearance of nepotism — we lean into it.) But both girls are smart and have proven to be worthy of their hire.

For years, whenever one of my children asks what I do at work, my standard response has traditionally been, “I sit in front of a computer all day.”

Sophie can now attest that, apart for the 17 times a day when I stand up to get something from the kitchen, this is mostly true.

We go into the office 2 or 3 times per week. I ride my bike and Sophie either drives or takes the Metro. (We have discovered my method of transportation usually gets me from home to the building faster, but Sophie usually gets up to the actual office ahead of me because I stop to shower.) In the office we sit about 18 inches apart. When we work from home, Sophie works at the dining room table while I rotate among the desk in my office, a recliner in the basement, the living room sofa, and the front porch. When hauling my one-pound laptop around becomes too burdensome, I switch over to my iPad.

I complain about a lot of things. But I don’t think anyone has ever heard me complain about my job. 

Sophie and I have also started working together on Saturdays – she having recently joined me as an ordinance worker on the Saturday evening shift (4:15 to 9:00) at the Washington D.C. Temple. I can’t begin to express how much I love this. 

Two months into my life as a temple worker, I continue to find it immensely satisfying. One of the unexpected things it has taught me, however, is that I don’t own as many white shirts as I thought I did. As it turns out, several of my shirts appear white under, say, a nice charcoal or navy blue suit. But when I wear them under my white temple suit, their dinginess becomes embarrassingly apparent  – they look more gray than anything.

It would be easy to spin this into a metaphor if I felt like the temple was a place that exposes my flaws. But that is basically the opposite of how the temple makes me feel. I like to think I’m fairly open and honest about my many, many shortcomings. But the only thing the temple exposes about people (all people) is their divine origin and their infinite potential. It is a wonderful place that way.

I got to go to a different temple last week when I was invited to attend a friend’s…

Bris

My Tuesday mornings usually begin with a 5:30 a.m. track workout at Northwood High School with a incredibly friendly and supportive group of people. The undisputed leader of our merry band of runners is a gregarious fellow named Shlomo Fishman, whose awe-inducing speed – he won the Atlanta Marathon last year (he didn’t just finish first in his age group; he broke the tape) – is matched only by his ability to make everyone feel like a member of the family.

The family-ness of “Northwood b4 Dawn,” as we call ourselves, was on display earlier this month when Shlomo’s first son was born and we were all invited to the bris a week later.

Never having been invited to a bris before, how could I say no?

Crystal and I were greeted inside the synagogue by Rachel, a friend whom I affectionately refer to as the “Orthodox Jewish grandmother who runs faster than me.” She often passes me on the track despite wearing a skirt that goes past her knee. Rachel escorted Crystal into the left side of the sanctuary with the rest of the women. I went to the right with the men, all wearing ceremonial robes and phylacteries.

It all felt so familiar.

(Also, if you think our worship can get a little chaotic with all the little kids running around, we’ve got nothing on these guys.)

I found a place to sit near the back, mostly to keep out of the way of the family and other worshippers, but also because a circumcision isn’t one of those things I have ever felt a burning desire to witness. Somebody told me the mohel was also a pediatric surgeon, so the boy was apparently in good hands.

Following the ceremony, we moved outside and I helped myself to two different kinds of cheesecake and the best lox and bagels I’ve had in a while.

The whole experience warmed my heart and filled me with gratitude for all the friendly and supportive relationships I feel so lucky to have at home, at work, at church, and across the various dimensions of my life.

Love,
Tim

1. This figure includes 2 marathons at the end of Ironman triathlons. I count these two even though they both involved an embarrassing amount of walking
2. It’s possible that Pelecanos went for more than 5 minutes – I didn’t time him – but 5 is all it felt like. At Hannah’s graduation (from Montgomery Blair High School) in 2014, they made us listen to Tom Perez (who was then serving as President Obama’s Secretary of Labor). I don’t remember how long he actually droned on, but it felt like about an hour and a half.
3. I grew up and graduated from high school in New Jersey and have no memory of Beach Week. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I was kind of a dork in high school (if you can imagine) and likely would not have gone even had I known about it. But I don’t recall even knowing about it.