Summa Cum Laude

I was at a dinner the other evening. It wasn't for me but I was there. It was held to honor lots of people who had graduated in the top ten percentile in their college graduation classes. There was  - as expected - a cocktail hour before the dinner and, by chance, a man and his sister came to sit with us at our table. The man admitted he had graduated by the skin of his teeth but he was there as his sister's guest and because he had put a video presentation together for the college. I noted that there were very, very few luminaries among the top ten. They were all successful people but nothing extraordinary. The guy who got the biggest cheers was that man who had sat with us and who probably graduated in the bottom ten percent. It is well-known that many super-successful people are often not the ones who succeed in school. This was no exception. It's not the teachers who matter; it's the pupils. You could name ten or twenty extraordinary historical figures but you could never name who their teachers were. It matters, but not that much. As the 1800 tequila commercial says, "enough said."