jimmy_tingle_哈佛大学演讲原稿

Jimmy Tingle

Thank you, I am truly honored to be here this morning, my name is Jimmy Tingle and that’s my real name. And I was born and raised right here in Cambridge Massachusetts. I am an unlikely choice to give a commencement address at Harvard because quite frankly my friends I am not a scholar, which will become increasingly more evident as I proceed. I am a comedian by profession. And I started performing here in the Boston area in the early 1980s, actually did street performing right down here in Harvard square. I traveled all over the world performing stand-up comedy. I don’t want to brag, but two years ago I performed in Europe and I just like to say “excellent country”. You know what’s nice for being here this morning, you actually get that joke.

Actually I am from a long line of intellectuals, growing up here in Cambridge we lived right near your college. My father owned and drove taxi cabs. Here in Harvard square he would pick up Harvard professors, they would tell him things. He would come home and tell us. For generations Harvard has given scholarships to students from Cambridge and students from all over the world who could meet the academic requirements.

Starting in the third grade, my dear sweet mother who was here this morning would say to me, “Jimmy, if you study really hard, someday, you could go to Harvard.” By the sixth grade, she stopped telling me that. By the eighth grade, our whole neighborhood had their eyes set on Harvard, not so much for scholarships, but because it was an excellent place to steal bicycles.

I can remember running through this very yard, some forty years ago, being chased by Harvard students, the Harvard faculty and the Harvard police department. Other college campuses during the 1960s were bitterly divided between the students and the administration over civil rights and the war in Vietnam. But here at Harvard, my friends and I were able to unite students, faculty and law enforcement.

It was in this very yard that I had my first spiritual awakening. As I was running I started to pray, please god, please god don’t let me get caught, I’ll never do it again, my mother will kill me, she always wanted me to go to Harvard, this isn’t what she meant. 21Then I realized I was an altar boy, I was a catholic, I should have been praying before I tried to take the bicycle. And I just want to say to the alumni gathered here this morning on behalf of myself and all the other misguided youth of Cambridge and greater Boston who may have unjustifiably taken your bicycles we are sorry.

And to the graduates, many of you will go on to positions of great power and influence in business and politics and government, and the temptations to cut corners to lie to steal to cheat will be formidable, my advice to you today is simply this, ask for guidance before you commit the crime. Trust me it is much less embarrassing to ask for help privately than to beg for forgiveness at graduation.

And I am so grateful, I am so grateful that the petty crimes of my youth were not successful. For had my dishonest behavior been rewarded, I may not be with you here today my life may have taken a different turn. And I could have ended up on Wall Street.

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I always wanted to go to this school, but always felt that it was so late. Yet encouraged by family, and friends and colleagues, and my mom and my wife Catherine, I put in an application anyway, and like all of you, we were absolutely overjoyed, when that letter of acceptance came in the mail. I couldn’t believe it, I said to my wife, I can’t believe this. After all of these years, I’ve actually been accepted to Harvard. They must really need a commencement speaker.

This entire year people have asked me Jimmy why would a comedian want to go to Harvard. the same reason all of you wanted to go to Harvard, we got in. And all of us have faced challenges getting here today, and still more academic challenges once classes started. My biggest academic challenge was the quantitative mathematic requirement for graduation. Unfortunately I had to take statistics. Fortunately we had a wonderful, and dedicated and great teacher, Deborah Hughes Hallett.

Who was kind enough to arrange extra help secessions for students who were struggling with the material. I went to every single extra help secession she offered. It was always a very familiar scenario. Me and nineteen students from other countries. Countries often in conflict with one another, India and Pakistan, Turkey and Greece, Israelis and Palestinians, all of us helping one another, all of us learning from one another, all of us supporting one another, across racial, ethnic and religious lines. And I say this as a native Bostonian, all of us with English as a second language.

All of us are here today because somebody helped us. 34 Whether it was family or friends or colleagues or teachers or administration or just scholarships or God or a highly power, someone or something helped us get here today and now it’s our job to help others and that is education and that is human progress in its simplest form.

And I believe very very strongly, that with right amount of the physical, spiritual and intellectual help, almost anything in this world is possible. All of the students in those extra help sessions passed those courses, some of those students actually got an A in statistics, I personally got a B, which for me was a miracle. Actually in the spirit of honesty, a B minus, which was a minor miracle. But if I could get the help that I needed to get a B minus in statistics in quantitative mathematics at graduate school at Harvard, there is hope for world peace.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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