I froze.
The caller, Beth McLaughlin from the Board of Education, continued to talk unaware she had just discovered my greatest fear: Public speaking. “So I was wondering if you would be interested in ‘speaking’ ...”
Speaking? Speaking!
I could hear choppers. Machine guns went off everywhere. Bombs exploded. I dove into my foxhole (under my desk).
I was having a flashback. Not ‘Nam but the snow-thick (and I do mean “thick”) grounds of Loring Air Force Base in Maine, the snake- and alligator-infested woods of Moody AFB in Valdosta. The Public Affairs Office!
It was there I learned I would never be John F. Kennedy. I would never be Ronald Reagan. If I were president, my speeches would be given like that Wizard of Oz guy – what’s behind curtain number one.
“Honey, the White House tours have left. Nobody’s going to ask you to speak. You can come out from under the bed now.”
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’ve done it. Lord knows I’ve done it. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of times – spoken in front of/to groups when all eyes were on me (gives me chills just thinking about it to be honest). Even been on point, the Air Force spokesman, for three airplane crashes – one a tanker that exploded in Canada and one a Navy Blue Angel that went down while practicing.
When I was at the aforementioned locations – and in the PA Office – I was “hand picked” to give the base’s Mission Briefing, a 30-45-minute slideshow detailing everything from who we were, what we did and how we did it. (Note: In the case of both assignments it had already been developed when I got there. Otherwise the entire briefing would have been: “We fight wars with planes, people and stuff. Thank you. You’ve been a great audience.”)
Also, “hand picked” meant the officer in charge at both locations, because he was too scared to do it, walked out of his cushy pad and into our little corner of the ghetto, looked around and because he only saw two or three stripes on them and six on me said: “Congratulations ...”
In Maine I once gave the briefing to former Sen. George Mitchell (and entourage), Rep. Olympia Snowe (and company), the commander of Strategic Air Command at the time (at the time when SAC even existed) and a host of other generals and VIPs. In Valdosta it was more of the same, generals and VIPs – all with sheep in tow.
Internally, it was war – both the stress leading up to it and actually doing it. Field Marshall Butterfly: “Come on men we need more sandbags or we’ll never contain this panic.” (Note: Trust me. Panic is much bigger than butterflies.) Scotty Butterfly: “But cap’n I’m givin’ her all she can take now ...” Madame Butterfly: “She’s going to blow!”
And don’t give me any of that: “Just imagine them in their underwear.” Been there, done that. Been there, done that and been there, done that. All I got was: Senators wear boxers. Generals prefer briefs, and officers-in- charge who are too scared to do the Mission Briefing wear g-strings (I’ll let you figure out the hidden meaning in that last).
So to be asked to come and speak to a bunch of administrators – principals and teachers and such I suppose (see froze) – prior to the Criterion- Referenced Competency Test was simply out of the question.
But the more I thought about it – six doctor-prescribed anti-depressants and a visit to a shrink helped – the more I resolved: One, if all those prior speaking engagements wasn’t facing my fear, now was the time, and two, the CRCT is an extremely great cause.
I know this to be fact. I’ve had three already come up through the school system, I have a 9-year-old daughter in there now as you probably already know and my wife’s a parapro at Linwood Elementary.
Plus, it might be nice to see what sort of fashion sense Superintendent David Carpenter has.
(P.S. Beth: Couldn’t I just do like some of the other school officials I’ve seen in photos – kiss a pig, eat worms, get taped to the side of a wall and have pies thrown at me ... all of the above? I assure you, based on this whole underwear thing – and mine in particular – it’ll be a whole lot less messy.)
