A week to be distracted

It's great when a college graduation speaker offers specific advice to the graduates. It's even better when a graduate is able to take the specific advice of the speaker.

So it is with my son David, who graduated this week from Boston College.

His commencement speaker -- documentary filmmaker Ken Burns -- talked specifically about the kinds of things the graduates should make an effort to do.

"Travel," Burns said at one point in his remarks. "Don't get stuck in one place. Stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon, and go to Yellowstone and Yosemite. After all, you own them. Whatever you do, walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. Listen to jazz music, the only art form created by Americans, and a daily proof that that exceptionalism, no matter what the pundits say, is alive and well."

David plans to stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon, and go to Yellowstone and Yosemite as part of a six-week, cross-country trip that started this week.

David is the second of my two children. In the process of preparing to graduate (a process that always involves the parents) he was also in the process of preparing for his trip (also a process that involves the parents).

So I guess I can be forgiven if I've been a little distracted with both the preparation to graduate and the preparation for the trip. Now that he's on the road, I am at once anxious and jealous. I'm anxious for the obvious reasons of just being a parent, having him and his two traveling buddies out there somewhere; jealous because I'd love to be along for the ride.

It's actually a ride I took with David's mother in the 1970s. We saw the same sites that David will see, but I hope for him that he'll see and experience much more of the road.

It's great that David is driven by a similar wunderlust. For me it was driven by the best known of the road books -- "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac, but more so by the lesser known "Travels with Charley" by John Steinbeck.

It'll be different for David. For one, if he chooses, he can be in touch through texts, or cell phone calls, or emails. My parents, according to what my Mom said recently, had no clue where I was during my trip in the '70s. Like we did, he'll have trip maps from the American Automobile Association, but unlike us he'll also have a GPS.

If he is in touch and tells me where they are, I'll be able to remember as he visits the waterfront in Seattle and eats the alder-smoked fish. I'll be able to see in my mind's eye the natural stone arches at Arches National Park in Utah.

I'll be a little distracted in worrying that he and his buds are safe. That the 2002 Mazda sedan (pictured above) he is borrowing from me will hold up to the rigors of the road. That they'll be responsible, make the right choices. That they'll have a great time and assemble memories for a lifetime.

I'll be distracted because I'll be thinking of standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon.