Susan Bolotin explained why high school students have stopped taking showers after gym class in her commencement address Thursday night in Sharon High School.
Ms. Bolotin, assistant managing editor of Life magazine and valedictorian of Sharon's class of 1968, pointed to a story on the showering subject that appeared in The New York Times several months ago.
``Students Still Sweat, They Just Don't Shower'' was the story's headline, she said, explaining the Times reported, ``Insecurities about body shape play a big role in the reluctance to shower at schools.''
She said it's upsetting that an entire population of students is ``so unwilling to compare themselves with an unrealistic, usually unattainable, often undesirable image that they are refusing to take showers.''
But that, she told the graduates, was not her point.
``I don't really care whether you go around smelling like an old sock,'' she said, adding, ``but I would like you to consider, as you prepare to go out into the world, how many people there are out there against whom you can judge yourself.
``... I'm thinking of people whose minds are more developed than yours, people whose brains have received more exercise and training, people with more skill, more experience, people with muscles where it counts. And if you constantly judge yourself against them _ and turn away, scared, uncertain, unwilling to risk comparison _ you're not going to get anywhere.''
Ms. Bolotin gave her freshman year of college as an example, saying she felt like coming home the first week and wondered how upperclassman could know so much and she so little.
And when she started her first job, she said she spent the first few weeks wondering when her boss was going to discover what a big mistake it was to hire her.
``But if you spend all your time comparing yourself with people who know how to do something faster and better than you do, you'll never learn how to do it faster and better yourself,'' she said. ``Sometimes the water is really cold, but you have to get into the shower.''
Ms. Bolotin, the first woman to address a Sharon High commencement, also talked of first moving to New York City and feeling like an outsider.
However, despite feeling unsophisticated since she had never lived any place larger than Sharon, she said she had what many people in the Big Apple lacked.
``I knew who I was, what I believed in. I wasted little time wondering what was right, what was wrong. And I truly believed the world would not explode if _ or should I say, when? _ I made a mistake.''
For that she not only credits her parents, but her hometown as well.
``In a place like Sharon you learn that jumping into the water isn't so bad, that getting wet is better than nothing at all. What's the big deal? It's only a shower. And if you slip on the soap, you can bet a lot of hands will be reaching out to help you get up,'' she said.
``Don't waste time comparing yourself with others,'' she said. ``Take a chance. Come on: Get into that shower, you'll soon discover how big a splash one person can make.''
