06/13/2007

Associated Press

Rep. Norm Dicks didn't pay much attention to the rumbling sound during his commencement speech at the University of Washington.

Only afterward did Dicks, D-Wash., holder of two degrees from the school, member of the Huskies' 1961 Rose Bowl football team and a late fill-in for Al Gore at the rain-sodden graduation ceremony last weekend, learn that it was an impatient stamping of feet.

As if that weren't enough, at one point a student walked in front of the stand and motioned him to hurry up.

"It was painful," Dicks said Tuesday. "It was about as bad a day as you could get. It was a very long program, the weather conditions were terrible and, obviously, one student came up and yelled at me."

Dicks told The Seattle Times that he was satisfied that the impatience stemmed from the weather rather than from the substance of his speech, which mentioned environmental issues such as climate change and cleaning up Puget Sound.

"When I went out to practice the day before, I had my sunglasses on," he said. "By Saturday, the whole thing had turned into a debacle."

Dicks said his right ear was clogged and he was concentrating on reading his 15-minute speech when he became aware of a rumbling. He didn't think much of it because it sounded like what he had heard before at Husky Stadium as a football player.

"Under the circumstances, I should have shortened the speech, but I didn't do it and paid a price for it," he said. "I didn't know what was happening. My wife told me later it was stamping feet in the stands.

"She was absolutely convinced it was because it was the middle of a huge rainstorm and it was hard to get people to sit there."

University officials have refused to say whom Dicks was recruited late in the spring to replace as speaker, but Dicks said school officials had earlier enlisted him to ask the former vice president to speak.

"I talked to Al," Dicks said. "Al had a conflicting trip and couldn't be there."

As for the site of the commencement, Dicks said university officials should consider a covered location "so they don't embarrass themselves again."

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Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com