Jeremy Eule Addresses Schreiber Class of 2011

Editor's note: After a careful selection process, was chosen to deliver this commencement address to the class of 2011 at the commencement exercises on June 24 in Port Washington. He shared his speech with Patch. 

Alright, with a show of hands, who here has seen any of the "Toy Story" movies? Good, I’ll just assume that’s everyone. We have witnessed the adventures of Woody, Buzz, and their fellow toys, as they explore a gigantic, unknown world, rescuing other toys, and trying to return to their longtime owner, Andy. Throughout the three films, they encounter many obstacles, and they change a lot along the way. If you think about it, our experiences over the years are very similar to those of Andy and his toys in "Toy Story."

The "Toy Story" series started back in 1995, only two years after most of us were born. Woody, the “Rootin’ Tootin” Cowboy, is Andy’s favorite toy, and Woody has his supporting cast consisting of Rex the dinosaur, Mr. Potato Head and many others. They all live in Andy’s room as he plays with them, creating various adventures and games for them. In a way, Andy’s room was our elementary school. We were used to a small, familiar space and our close circle of friends and acquaintances, and we didn’t want this to change.

At one point in the first Toy Story film, Woody and Buzz end up in an arcade called Pizza Planet, a place that they have never been in before. Comparatively, in sixth grade, most of us ended up in a new school, .  Just as Woody and Buzz have to navigate their way around this new place, we had to learn to navigate our way around Weber. Weber was intimidating at first. We all heard the stories about how it was impossible to make it to your class on time or rumors that the school was one mile long. How were we supposed to know where these classes were? Why were there nine periods in a day? We had never even had multiple teachers in the same day! And how were we supposed to remember a locker combination? Eventually, though, we all figured it out.

On Andy’s birthday, he receives a new Buzz Lightyear action figure, a space ranger, with cool features and catch phrases, including his most famous: “To infinity, and beyond.” Woody and Buzz don’t hit it off right away, but eventually, they learn that they have to work together to get back to Andy’s house, and in the end, they become friends.

Just like Woody has to learn to be friends with Buzz, we had to learn to make friends with new people, people who we had not grown up with since Kindergarten. I remember in my sixth grade social studies class, we were assigned to tables with complete strangers, only to find that we would form lasting friendships with many of them. I was placed at a table with one of my closest Daly friends as well as two other girls who I had never met. We bonded over one kid’s crush on our teacher, and we bonded over that one aide we nicknamed “The Seagull” due to the frequent flapping of her arms. New friends and old friends came together to form groups where we felt that we belonged. In Toy Story 2, Woody is faced with the same life-changing question that we all encountered in our transition to middle school: “Where do I belong?” He has to decide whether he should go off with a new group of toys or whether he should stick with his original group of friends. Eventually, just like Woody, we ended up making the right decisions, and while some of us have changed groups over the years, we all made it to this point with friends that we can call our own.

In "Toy Story 2," Woody meets a cowgirl named Jesse. This reminds us of that point in our young lives when our hormones began to take control of our thoughts and actions. We finally realized that girls didn’t actually have cooties, and that, in fact, they were kind of attractive. I can’t speak for the girls, but they probably thought that we were all inappropriate freaks who just reeked of B.O…and they were absolutely correct. Boys and girls started “going out” and “hooking up” as parents tried to comprehend what these strange phrases meant. I’m sure many of us can remember our parents using the latter phrase in a completely different way, saying,“We’ll hook up with you later dear.” As we became more mature, we stopped laughing at our parents, and some of us even tried to teach them our lingo.

Just as "Toy Story 2" is the segue between "Toy Story" 1 and 3, middle school was the segue between elementary school and high school. It is also the least memorable of the three. The events of "Toy Story 2" are somewhat unimportant and forgotten, just as middle school is a time that many of us would like to forget altogether. But it was a necessity. It bridged the gap between two different types of school and our experiences in middle school laid the groundwork for the people that we have become today.

"Toy Story 3" was the most recent of the three films, arriving in theaters last summer. Andy is going off to college and cannot bring all of his toys with him. Based on my mom’s reaction to the film, I’m going to guess that almost every mom here burst into tears at the idea of Andy going away and stowing his childhood toys. Some of you probably even went to the extreme of hiding the family’s Mr. Potato Head so that it wouldn’t be thrown out, like my mom did. I’m sure it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that some of the graduates here got emotional too, when we realized that Andy was a lot like us.

Another issue that Andy faces in going away to college concerns the ownership of his room. His sister asks him whether she can have his room, just as many of our siblings are demanding to take over our rooms. Guys, we don’t want to come home to our rooms painted pink, covered in flowers and filled with cutouts of Edward Cullen. Girls, I’m sure you don’t want to come home to your room smelling disgusting, covered in football jerseys and pictures of swimsuit models. These are all parts of going away that Andy had to deal with and ones that we will have to deal with in the upcoming months.

Towards the end of the movie, Andy looks at all of his toys and thinks about the great times he had with them. I recently cleaned out my closet, and I remembered almost every toy; where I played with it, whether it was a favorite of mine, and any event that it was associated with. We may all feel that same nostalgia here today.  I’d like everyone to look around at the people surrounding you.  I bet that you could look at almost every person here and remember some shared moment. Maybe you’re at that girl that you met back at a “Beehive” dance in sixth grade, or maybe you’re looking at the boy you became friends with after finding out that you both loved knitting. Maybe you’re even looking at a past boyfriend or girlfriend. We will always associate specific words and events with certain friends. I know that I have a few memories like this. I know that whenever I play ping-pong, I will remember the countless hours I spent in Michael Graf’s basement, hitting the ball around and talking about absolutely nothing. When I ride my bike, I will remember racing Max Kraus down my street and watching him fly over his handlebars, breaking his thumb. I’ll always remember that Schreiber Pep Rally when, in the middle of the three-legged race, Mr. Corbo and I went tumbling to the ground, losing the race. I have so many memories, just like these, and like the toys in my closet, we cannot throw out these memories or these friends, even if we wanted to, because most of them will remain in our minds forever.

Like us, Andy is leaving his toys behind, but not his memories. We are leaving something else behind too… a legacy. We are leaving a legacy for all the freshmen, sophomores, juniors, teachers and parents. Seniors ’11 will be remembered one way or another. Maybe we’ll be remembered for our brilliant minds and hard work. Maybe we’ll be remembered as the kids who always sat in the back corner, “the senior corner,” in the cafeteria. Maybe we’ll be remembered as those seniors who could make friends with anyone that we ran into. Maybe we’ll be remembered as the class that had Dan Miller, the funniest stand-up comedian in the history of Schreiber High School. Maybe we’ll be remembered as the most spirited senior class, cheering at volleyball games or soccer games in blue spandex suits. All I know is, that no matter how we are remembered, it will be for a good reason, and the class of 2011 will live on in the minds of those living in Port Washington.

We are leaving this town that we have called home and heading into a world that is so much bigger than we are. In reality, we’re not all that different from that slinky dog, or those green army men, or even Hamm the pig. Andy, too, is moving on to a bigger world. He is leaving his familiar bedroom and moving into a dorm, where he will have a roommate and little privacy. Andy has to grow up, leave home, and learn how to be a functioning adult.

At the end of "Toy Story 3," Andy is giving all of his toys to a little girl down the street, when he discovers Woody lying in the bottom of the toy box. Andy had originally planned to take Woody to college, but in the end, he decides to leave Woody, the symbol of his childhood, behind. Just like Andy, many of us would like to hold onto our childhoods: when we had few responsibilities, when it was okay to be immature, when we could watch “Spongebob” and “Pokemon” without ridicule, and when we were completely dependent on our parents. Sure, we can still be kids sometimes, but we have to leave our childhood behind. We have to learn to be independent, responsible, and for some of us, myself included, we have to learn to be more mature. We’ll all get there. We’ll grow up, have jobs and maybe have families. And for this class, the 2011 graduating class of Schreiber High School, the sky is the limit. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if we wanted to, we could go “to infinity, and beyond.”