By Laura Lothian, On-line Forty-Niner
May 13, 1997
To walk or not to walk, that is the question. This is not the musings of a 10-month-old, it is the question I have been asking myself for weeks. On May 29, am I going to put on the cap and gown and walk?
My initial answer is no. I hate ceremony. I believe couples should have receptions but not weddings. I do not like the rituals of church. I do not like any man-made event that changes nothing.
Whether I shake hands with Cal State Long Beach President Robert Maxsdon with my right hand while accepting my diploma with my left hand does not alter whether I earned my bachelor's degree or not.
Linda Jimenez earned her bachelor's degree from CSULB in 1994. She did not walk.
"I didn't have any real close friends that were graduating with me," said Jimenez, a criminial justice major. "There was no strong camaraderie, no, 'we did it!'"
Jimenez celebrated her winter degree with a trip to Lake Tahoe.
"Had I graduated in the spring, my walking or not walking would have been more up for debate," she said. "As it is, I didn't and I don't regret it."
That settled it, I am not going to walk either.
I graduated from eighth grade and high school and both events were disasters. As an eighth grader, I didn't have any dresses pretty or formal enough for graduating.
My mom bought me a lovely lavender polyester dress that was covered in flowers and tied in the back. The kind of dress a bride usually sics on her bridesmaids.
I stuck it in the closet and forgot about it until the day of the event. I put on the dress and realized in my excitement that I forgot to buy shoes. All I owned were construction boots that were very popular then.
One of my favorite pictures of me as an awkward pre-teen is me walking on that humid June in Massachusetts, frizzy hair bunched under by blue cap, my lavender flowered dress peeking from beneath the flap of the blue robe, the sunshine just catching the glint of my silver braces and gold-rimmed glasses.
Luckily my mom cannot take photos very well; she missed my brown paint-spattered work boots. Unfortunately, she did catch the tops of my gym socks.
I dress better now. The braces and glasses are gone, though the frizzy hair remains. But I still do not want to walk.
I asked my in-laws for advice (the first time ever).
"I say walk," said Ed Lothian, class of '57. "This is something you'll never get a chance to do again. The ceremony is symbolic of a lot of great effort, it makes it a memory."
His wife, my mother-in-law, chimed in, "I think attending graduation is special," said Joan Lothian, who received her master's in art education from CSULB in 1976.
"I worked really hard, I never thought I'd do it. It was great to have my mom and dad, Ed and the kids there."
I feel myself wavering. What if I don't walk and regret it? I decided to walk.
My sister then reminded me of my high school graduation. I had spent the afternoon laying in the sun.
Then I missed the first half of the ceremony because I was at the mall shopping for a graduation dress And shoes. By the time I got there, my face was a shiny red tomato and I had missed my name being called.
At the party afterward, my best friend threw up Pina Colada on me. I haven't had a coconut drink since. Alan Carter, the boy I vowed I'd get to know intimately that night, left with a girl who didn't have a sunburn.
What am I thinking? Graduation ceremonies bite. I am definately not going to walk.
Ivan Goldman, one of my journalism instructors, tried to change my mind. He told me to walk.
"I didn't walk and I regret it," he said. "It's like missing your prom."
Goldman did not walk because he had just joined the military and felt self-conscious about his shaved head.
Carrie Thobe, who graduated from Concordia University in Irvine in 1994, told me I'd be crazy to miss my graduation.
"It's the grand finale," she said. "This is what's it all about. This is the celebration after the grind."
Six thousand people from CSULB will be walking this month. I still have not made up my mind.
I probably will not but if I do, I will be the one with frizzy hair tucked under my cap and a face filled with trepidation.
Laura Lothian is the editor in chief of the Daily Forty-Niner