First Lady’s Speech

It was a relief to read that Barbara Bush has been able to redefine regret for us. Somehow she must have avoided contact with those thousands of women who married young and joyously in an era which deemed the institution of marriage and the production of children to be the pinnacle of women’s expectations. Women who now find themselves deserted, divorced, career-less and alone after years of “service” to those loving husbands who went off with younger women usually associated with the husbands’ professions. Yes, Barbara, there really is a reality out there, and it is drowning in regret.

Perhaps a more fitting comment for the graduates at Wellesley might have been an excerpt from T.H. White’s “The Once & Future King”: “The best thing . . . is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. (Learning) is the only thing the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.”

LITTELLE JOHNSON

Long Beach