A Very Few Words

Commencement speeches are often exercises in bombast that run second only to the Senate filibuster. The class of '72 at the University of Alabama received a rare treat this year: a 250-word commencement address, aptly titled "A Few Words," delivered by Dr. Larry T. McGehee, 36, chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Martin.

McGehee's terse speech consisted of six one-word rubrics--rage, reason, reading, laughter, lingering and love--with an average of 35 words each.

P: On rage: "Age and education give you the authority, citizenship the responsibility, to rage against the mediocrity and injustice in your society, more especially in yourself. Heed Dylan Thomas: 'Do not go gentle into that good night . . ./ Rage, rage against the dying of the light.' "

P: On reading: "Develop a thirst for printer's ink and quench it by reading, for from books flows the fountain of youth found by few."

P: On laughter: "He who cannot laugh at himself appears ridiculous."

P: On love: "Love is the most unnatural human emotion; although we have learned to transplant the human heart, we have not learned to transform it. Commit an unnatural act: love one another."

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