Graduation Toast To My Daughter - Ann Marie Poem by Robert Bartlett

We're gathered at this place tonight
To honor Ann Marie;
Our smiling gal who at midday light
Received her baccalaureate degree.

Thinking back to March of sixty four
The first time I saw Ann Marie,
I beheld a newborn babe through the hospital door
Sticking out her tongue at me.

We watched you grow and enter school
Where you excelled, and kept the rule.
Whenever the teacher needed a break
Ann could be called upon, the class to take!

Your unbridled energy never quite spent
Affected people wherever you went.
You joined Future Homemakers and flew to Miami
For a conference with kids who lunched on pastrami.

Upon your return the Girl Scouts looked neat,
So you joined with the troop and marched to that beat.
You sold lots of cookies and gadgets galore;
When the contests were ended and they tallied the score,
They found that you'd won the camporee trip;
So off went you to England carrying only one grip.

After two weeks of camping and touring around
You came back with Welles* caked with mud from the ground,
And stories of England
And old London Town.
With the coming of fall, you wanted to scream
But instead went to work for Bergson's Ice Cream.

Completing high school with honors at Holy Name
You decided that working would now be your game.
Waitressing and selling shoes
Were trades you'd now learned how to do.

From balancing books for the Christmas Santa
You moved right along at a steady canter
Until you discovered that trees were converted
To board feet of lumber, by woodsmen alerted
To those brokers, who gave up their green
For truckloads of lumber, sight unseen.

You clerked in their office
And balanced their coffers
While tracing the routes the trucks should take
As they carried the lumber across the states.
You ran their computers and programmed too,
But still, you couldn't find enough to do.

And so you enrolled at Quinsigamond College
There to gain some additional knowledge.
But being guided by the hand of fate
Soon you switched to Worcester State.
You majored in Finance and Marketing too;
We know there's a career just meant for you.

This short ballad doesn't tell
Of all the things you've done so well;
For this is but a partial listing
Of all the jobs and groups and vis'ting
That you've pursued throughout the years
Since first we beheld those newborn tears.

You've studied hard and earned your degree
You've persevered with autonomy;
So let us pause and raise our glass
As we drink this toast to one fine lass.
Congratulations, Ann Marie
May your star ever be
In ascendancy.


*Welles refers to Wellington Boots