Comfort on Stage

It's amazing.  I remember that when I was growing up, I was very scared to be at the head of the class for oral book reports.  This stage fright also affected me when I started my career.  I recall, I was about 26 and I had to present my accomplishments and my objectives to my department at work.  I was sweating bullets up there.  We used an overhead projector to do our presentations and I managed to place my viewgraph (that's what we called them back then) on the overhead projector and it appeared upside down.  My supervisor at the time, Rich, stood up and said "Ralph.  There is not need to ge nervous.  Let me show you a trick.  I look at the overhead and if I can read it, that is how I place it on the projector. Everybody can read it then.

Fast forward many years and I spend a lot of time giving presentations to major corporations, technology consortiums and other events.  Just recently I gave one, and there were about 150 people in the room.  They came to hear about some cool stuff that we were working on.

Last week, I sat down to see my 14 year old, Nick, stand in front of the stage for a school pageant he was in called, Mr. Wren.  He was the first person up and when he came through the closed curtains, he sat down with his guitar.  He was going to do his talent portion of the competition, which is to sing a song from the Beatles.  Before he began, he asked if the people in the back can hear a few notes from his guitar. Then he said a few words about the song, the fact that it was from the Beatles, his favorite band.  Then he said "let's begin.". He then played an amazing song.  At one point, he pauses and the audience thought the song was over and they are applauding his performance.  He just looks up, raises his index finger indicating that it was not over yet, to give him a second.  He closes his eyes, bends his head down, opens his eyes, looks at his guitar and continues to finish up the song. 

He then got up and thanked the audience, who was applauding his performance, again, turned around, and walked away.  Nick is going to be a performer. It is something he has always wanted to do.  But the comfort he showed there, was so unlike the lack of comfort I had, when I was young.  Here he was performing like a pro. 

Years earlier, our oldest son, Dan, did practically the same thing for the same competition.  He got up there and sang a Michael Buble' song.  He said he wanted to bring some class to the event.  He told me that he was ready to throw up before hand but felt great afterwords.

Nick, won his category, Mr. Freshman that evening.  I believe it was not just because of his performance, which was spectacular.  But it was primarily because of the comfort he demonstrated on stage.

Needless to say, it was one of my proudest moments as a father.  It also brought back memories about how scared I was just being in front of my class to for an oral book report.

I'm proud of both of my boys for what they can do and looking forward to see what they do next.

Memories

Now that I have been dealing with someone in my family with dementia, I continue to wonder what it would be like if I lost my ability to remember.  While dementia realistically affects short term memory, it is the long term memory that I truely treasure.  At the same time, I wonder, what it would be like if I was able to really understand what went through my grandparent's minds, or how they thought, when they were younger.  What happened to them while they were growing up?  That made me want to leave a legacy for my boys, and my future grandchildren.

My goal is to record my memories, primarily so that I can leave that legacy I spoke about. But also to give me a chance to remember moments in my life that have made me who I am.  Who knows, it is probably nothing more than a mid-life crisis that I am going through. :)  Hahah.

My memories will be random, but it is designed to record things that I want to share.

So let's begin.

I want to start by stating that you cannot really know where you are going unless you have a good understanding of where you came from.  So many times I come across people that feel that they are entitled to get things.  Looking for the handout or for the silver platter.  I don't recall doing that.  I recall wondering "why me" all of the time while I was growing up.  I recall why things were hard for me. 

When I was in about the 7th grade, I remember being teased because I did not have designer jeans.  The funny thing is that designer jeans at that time, were Levis and Wrangler.  It was so much pressure at that time.  Pressure that I am sure is similar to what teens go through today for other reasons, especially a lot more than what was probably a $20 pair of jeans at the time.

I finally got my pair of jeans.  A pair of Wranglers.  I remember the day.  But most of all, I remember the fact that I only had one, and had 5 days of school.  So being creative, I removed the label from the pair of jeans, and put it on another pair of no-name jeans.  I felt great that now I really had two pairs of "Wranglers" though I knew the truth.  Well, the next day I spent the day pretty much trying to convince the other kids in class that it was indeed a real pair of Wrangler jeans.  Funny thing is that I was much more convinced about it than they were.  Looking back, it was one of those things that meant the world to me but really did not matter in the grand scheme of things. 

When my oldest son was about 10, I remember having a discussion with him about designer clothes.  Specifically, he needed a new pair of sneakers.  I asked him if he wanted us to buy him a designer pair of sneakers.  His response, at the time, was that he did not need it.  That we should not waste our money. It was just a pair of sneakers and he didn't care what the brand was.  When I mentioned to him that I was concerned about what the other kids would say, he responded with he did not care.

Amazing, but somehow, we had managed to build confidence in him early on to face the same problems that I faced when I was young.  The confidence that I lacked when I was growing up he had.