What a great delight to be in this marvelous space, to have such an occasion in which to speak to fellow graduates and friends and admirers of Bates College, and to be introduced by my old friend of 40 years, Bill Hiss, whose arrival in Parker Hall I remember as well as if it were yesterday. Many of those charms that have endured and endeared him to you for so many years were present early on in his time here at Bates. And I was as suspicious of them then as I am now, because Bill is able to make bricks without straw, which is why he has been so able and nimble an administrator in this college for so many years. All of us, in some sense, are part of Bill's flock because among his many portfolios in Lane Hall, or wherever he happens to abide, is the care and feeding of alumni. And all of us bear that designation, and Bill is the guy who knows where we are; he knows our needs, he knows our vanities and he knows which buttons to press when, in the service of the College, something that we have or do is desired. So, whenever I see Bill coming, I always grab my wallet because I know he will require me to do something that otherwise good sense would forbid me from doing. And all of us in this room have had that experience not only with Bill but also with our college.

Just a small example: As Bill was going on about this marvelous edition of the Narrative of the Life of Frederic Douglass, the presentation of which to this college I remember very well (which he did in honor of our friendship 20 years ago), I thought for certain that on the 40th anniversary of so precious a friendship, he was, in fact, going to give it to me. Clearly this was not his plan. I am simply to admire, adore and worship it, and it will be returned for safe keeping to the bowels of the library from which it will be returned, presumably, every 20 years for the next generation.

But it is a sign of Bill that he can do two wonderful things at once: He can honor our friendship and he can serve our college. That takes a great deal of imagination and creativity, and I applaud him publicly for that. But in applauding him for that, I'm applauding you for the same kind of thing, because all of you tonight represent people who are able to do at least two things at the same time reasonably well - which is why Gerald Ford is not a graduate of Bates College! You have been able to maintain wonderfully creative, independent lives out in the real world, doing interesting, demanding, sometimes undocumented but always valuable things with your lives, while at the same time maintaining an unbroken loyalty and affection to this college of our youth. And it seems to me that is a remarkable thing to celebrate and applaud.

One of the great things about being a graduate of Bates College is not so much the remembrance of things past - I hasten to remind us that most of us do not come back because of the remembrance of things past. In fact, if most of us remembered carefully the things of things past, most of us would not come back at all! Either we invent the things that we remember and make them far more favorable than they were, or we repress the things that we ought to remember which were less pleasant than we wish. I would like to suggest that despite all of the sentimentality and all the sense of the ties that bind, most of us are loyal to Bates not because of the past but because of the future. We are loyal to Bates because at some point in our past somebody invested in our future. That is what animates and unites us in our loyal service to the College.

Now, I happen to know who invested in the futures of most of us in this room, and that was none other than my old and dear friend, Milton L. Lindholm. If the truth be told, not one of us ever deserved to be admitted into Bates College and even fewer of us deserved to graduate from Bates College. But it was Milt, and Harry Rowe before him, and Bill Hiss after him, who invested in potential. They invested in the raw stuff of human flesh and, in many cases, my own included, they would have to say, "If we go strictly by the numbers and strictly by the record and strictly by the achievements posted, this is a man who would be much happier in Orono than in Lewiston!" But fortunately for us, and not so fortunately for Orono, Milt and his predecessors and successors invested in our futures and not in our past. For that we all thank God and we all thank Milt. Thus, I am very much aware that what draws us back is not a vision of past glories and achievements, whatever they might be, but a confident hope in the future, as yet undetermined, as yet undefined, and - if I may say so - as yet risky as any future ever was.

Now on the weekend in which we celebrate the inauguration of a new president -only the seventh in our long and cautious history of the College, we have no reason, no evidence, no facts to believe that President Hansen is, in fact, the cat's meow. We have no idea how great or good she will be. She could be the world's greatest disaster and we could all rue the day that my fellow Trustees made so hasty an ill-advised judgment. We have no idea. But, we invest with her in the future. She has the blessing, shall we say, of the Harry Rowe method, the Milton Lindholm method, the Bill Hiss method. We invest in futures here, and when she addressed us this morning, I think nearly all of us - I'm sure all of us - felt our future is in very good hands, indeed. And so we must remember when we look back upon that rather slender and bedraggled group of Maine farmers and apple pickers, those old Baptists of Parsonsfield in the 1840s and '50s, that they were far more interested in their future - namely ours - than they were in their place in history. And thus, the guiding destination of Bates is always the day after tomorrow and not yesterday.

Now I know it's hard for alumni such as ourselves to invest ourselves fully in the time that is yet to be. But that really is the hallmark, I think, of an engaged and active alumnus and an engaged and active volunteer for the College. You all are gathered here, I understand it on the highest of authorities, because consistently over the years you have invested time, talent and treasure in the future of the College. Whether it has been through interviewing candidates for admission into the classes of whatever; or it has been in soliciting your classmates for the annual appeal or the capital campaign or the class fund; or serving on innumerable unpaid committees, commuting to many, many meetings; hosting gatherings and even providing money - you have invested all that you have in the future well-being of this institution. And who could not bless you for that, who could not congratulate you for that and who could not celebrate you for that? This is what I understand is the reason for our gathering here tonight.

This very building, this splendid room, this itself is such a public testimony of the future of the College. Those of us who are on the left side of the staple in the alumni magazine could never have imagined such a space. (I hope you picked that notion up - it's a very good notion. I hasten to say that eventually everyone on this room will be on the left-hand side of the staple!) We could not have imagined such a stellar, remarkable space in our future. This was, in our day, marked as the maintenance palace and what Robert Berkelman used to call the international measure of the world's architecture, the Bates smokestack. (Some of you will remember that the Parthenon in Greece was six Bates smokestacks end to end, and so on and so forth. Those used to be called "nuggets," a term that still endears itself to those of us of a certain age.) We could not have imagined such a space, but somebody did. And thanks to the Pettengill gift and the Perry imagination and gift, we are sitting tonight in a testimonial space to the future.

But the future is really you. The future at Bates is never merely ideas. It is never merely an administrative fiat or grand design or a program or a blueprint. The future at Bates is always people - the fallible flesh of the human experience. Individually, name by name, we don't in some respects amount to a great deal. Some of us are surprised to find ourselves here. We have been pushed beyond our expectations and, in certain cases, beyond our endurance. As individuals, most of us - dare I speak as one of you - are not particularly compelling, or interesting, or even charming. Most of us would not choose to spend an evening or a year on a desert island with any one of us, as such. But taken together, what an enormous capacity for good, for goodness and for imagination that we represent. Who could think that such congenitally boring people as Bates graduates could, under the right circumstances, with the right provocation, and under the right leadership, actually lay claim to a major portion of the good future of this country and this continent and this world?

But we are those people. We have risen beyond our expectations. We have, in many cases, risen beyond the expectations of our professors and teachers. Have you ever come back and asked an old professor at Bates, "Do you remember me?" and the professor says, "I certainly do!" We have risen beyond what many might have thought of us and we have done so both because of the magic of Bates and - dare I say it - the mission of Bates. All of us are infected with a zeal for the future that generations yet to come may share both in what we knew and loved and share in things that we could not possibly begin to imagine. And the only way that double legacy is brought into being is by the unromantic and unremitting labor of volunteers such as you.

In every town, in every state, in every city, every country, every place represented here tonight, Bates has been well-served by its army of volunteer ambassadors. You are the ones who speak to the young people. You are the ones who speak to the principals and headmasters and teachers. You are the ones who encourage the donors and the philanthropists. You are the ones who sustain the parents and the friends. You are the ones who provide the human face and the human definition of Bates College. And it surprises me that is has taken us this long to gather you together in one space to utter a word of public thanks and appreciation to you. But that is what we do tonight. One can never say thank you too often. One can never hear too many words of encouragement. Gratitude cannot be too frequently expressed.

We are all either real or honorary Maine Yankees. We keep a firm control over our affections and our emotions. We all have rhetorically thin lips and do not utter gratuitous or fatuous words with ease. In short, we tend to be rather stingy, rather tight-fisted, rather closed-hearted with the things that mean the most. That is one of the Bates and Maine qualities we must strive to overcome, because as we move further and further into this new age and new century, we must learn to celebrate and be grateful for the gifts that we have given, for the gifts of which we are stewards, and for the gifts that we wish to pass on. We should smile a lot more frequently than we do; laugh more uproariously than is our customary habit; glad hand, jump up and shout and say, "Halleluiah, praise the Lord" or whomever it is your habit to praise; and give thanks for the fact that we are together, that we have inherited so much and that we have so much to offer to the age that is waiting before.

It makes one almost positively giddy to be a Bates graduate, almost insane with delight and pleasure, even suspicious sensual sensation to be a member of this kind of community and to share that pleasure with whomever we encounter, wherever we encounter them. But that is the transforming quality of our relationship to our college. We entered as dull, timorous, mildly egotistical little nerdy types from here and there, eager to find our little place and burrow through it until we got out at the other end with a Bates degree. And look at us now - far more interesting, far more compelling, far more charming, far more expecting, far more capable of offering what we received to others yet to come. The College owes you an absolutely incredible debt of gratitude.

Being a Bates graduate is a lifetime profession. You can't undo it. It's a bit like a birthmark or a tattoo, or - to use a religious metaphor - being a Bates graduate is a bit like a form of circumcision: You can't undo it. And as a result of that, we have this great opportunity to witness to others throughout the world, and you are the front line of that witnessing. Tonight, I know, we anticipate great things from you. Bates never sleeps, Bates never rests. The needs of the College are insatiable and the future is always, like the tide, lapping at our shores. We all know that. There's no such thing as a free dinner, especially at Bates. And you can bet that if they serve you wine at a free dinner at Bates, they expect even more than you could possibly imagine!

All of that is ahead of us. Right now the task is simply to thank you for what has already been done, for the record that has already been achieved, for the books that have been written, the deeds that have been done, the kindnesses that have been rendered, the missions that have been accomplished. This is a true and genuine occasion for thanks and for gratitude. I am simply the most available and convenient mouth by which the College chooses to express its thanks to you - its alumni, friends, neighbors and volunteers. But I willingly give such talents as I have in the service of that unique and happy cause. Institutions are generally regarded as ungrateful or insensitive, so when they actually do say thank you, we should all notice it, receive it with delight, and understand that we have entered into a unique relationship with a unique place.

So, in behalf of your college, on whose board I have the honor to serve; in behalf of the alumni, of whom I am one both by fact and by honorary degree; and in behalf of the people who run the place, my task tonight is to say to all of you, indeed to all of us, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank God for Bates, thank God for our experience at Bates, and thank God for Bates people who transformed that experience into the living pleasures and delight for the age that is waiting before. Let us give ourselves a glorious round of applause.

Click here to listen to the speech.