Today’s post comes from Wendell Wilkie High School’s “forever sophomore”, Bubby Spamden.
Hey Mr. C.,
Last Friday Mr. Boozenporn told us to imagine that we have been voted “Student Of The Year,” and that we have to give a thank you speech. Then he said Monday morning he’ll open up an envelope and announce the name of just one winner, and that person will have to stand up and give their speech.
Mary Ellen Nugent wanted to know what would happen to all the other speeches written by people who didn’t win.
Mr. B-porn said “Those speeches will be forgotten. Only the winner’s speech will be heard, and then we’ll all give that person a grade on it.”
He said it’s normal for people who win prizes to get criticized by the non-winners, so we should learn to deal with it.
Then I said “What if you’re pretty sure you won’t get named Student of the Year. Do you still have to do the assignment?”
He said “If you’re pretty sure you’re a loser, you don’t have to do any of my assignments. Because losers don’t know how to be grateful anyway.”
So I said, “What good is gratitude if somebody assigns you to have it? Isn’t it supposed to come from the heart?”
Then Mr. B-porn told me to be quiet and do my reading, which I did, ungratefully.
I went ahead and wrote the speech because I don’t want anybody to think that I THINK I’m a loser. But I’m pretty sure I won’t have to give it. That’s why I’m sending it to you. I can tell from your blog that on a lot of days you just don’t know what to say. Maybe getting a bunch of words and sentences for free will help!
No need to say “thanks”. Some people just aren’t cut out for gratitude!
Hey everybody,
I can’t believe I’m Student of The Year! I didn’t plan to be a student, so I guess I have to thank my parents for pushing me. I would have stayed home and watched TV for my whole life, but they saw something in me and realized it was something they needed to get off their couch. So they had the bus come pick me up.
I know I wouldn’t have won without all those teachers who saw that I wasn’t paying attention in class and didn’t ignore it, like Mrs. Kostner who came and stood by my desk when I started to fall asleep and Ms. Thompson who made me come sit up in the front of the room when I was joking around with the guys and Mr. Zeligman who threw erasers at me when I was drawing cartoon characters in my math book.
They helped me see how far behind everybody else I was.
Which brings me to all my fellow students who let me copy their essays and copy their calculations and their research and their test answers. I did it as a compliment because I really want to be just like you, but without working as hard as you do. It’s a long list – but nobody said gratitude was easy so here goes!
First, for letting me copy her biology report on red squirrels … hey, could somebody tell the band to stop? I have this long list of names and … wow! Pretty much everyone is giving me a signal to stop talking. At least I think that’s what that gesture means. so – I guess have to stop talking. But really, everyone, thanks!
What’s the greatest speech you never gave?
Trail Baboon 
Rise and Assume the Podium Baboons!
I never give speeches a lot. Much of what I think I might say about various topics deserves to go unsaid. I usually don’t say it now–a lesson learned in mid-to-advancing age. Bubby, as we all know, has not yet learned this. Most of my unsaid thoughts/speeches/letters are categorical:
Letters to the President, Senator, Govenor, Representative, Mayor…..
Letters to the Editor
Awards speeches, i.e., I’d like to thank the Nobel/Pulitzer/McArthur Committee….
Thank you notes (these probably SHOULD have been said or written)
And then, the most satisfying speech telling someone off. You incompetent, swin-ey____. How dare you assume_____. You are a pompous airbag not worth the space you take up…..blah, blah, blah. These ungiven speeches were most often directed at both mothers-in-law, now late, and various work supervisors.
So There!
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Yes Jacque, I have some great unspoken speeches too! Usually they are a thorough re-writing of what I actually said – much better with time to embellish and edit!
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I don’t give many speeches, either. I gave a “talk” on anger management to the 5th and 6th grade Sunday school class yesterday, but I don’t think I would classify that as a speech. I gave a 90 minute workshop on DSM-5 to the ND Counseling Association a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t think that was a speech, either. I participated in speech in high school, in the dramatic interpretation category, and didn’t do too badly. I don’t have much call for a soliloquy from Anna Christie these days.
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When I was a college student I worked summers at my dad’s stuffed animal plant, usually as a shipping clerk. One summer my job was to supervise the smallish crew of the night shift, about eight women. I don’t have many memories of that job. One of my jobs was to distribute D-Con rodent poison all around the factory. I thought of that part of my job as “feeding the livestock,” for it took a lot of poison to keep them under control. If I didn’t spread enough, the “girls” (as they called themselves) complained about all the rats and mice. And if I did my job well, the girls complained about the smell of decomposing rodents.
I was careful to hide my little crush on a big German farm girl from near Shakopee named Maria. She was a party girl who struggled with the fact she once got so drunk on beer that she acquired a beer allergy. Maria desperately experimented with drinking techniques, eventually discovering that if she drank beer fast enough through a straw she could get bombed without provoking the allergies.
When my dad indicated he needed more production from the night crew, I assembled the girls for what turned out to be the most effective speech I ever gave. What nobody but I knew was that I had a serious phobia about public speaking. To my chagrin and shock, when I was telling my crew we needed to do better I had a panic attack so serious I could not hide it. I suddenly couldn’t breath, and my voice warbled with an unintended vibrato. My crew misidentified my performance anxiety as extreme displeasure with them. Their eyes got huge as I struggled through my little speech. And, wow, did productivity soar after that night.
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Are you sure your dad’s factory wasn’t used as the model for The Pajama Game?
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Alas, I haven’t seen that show, so I couldn’t say.
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It is a musical about a strike for higher wages in a pajama factory in Iowa. Your description of your speech and your crush on Maria reminded me of it.
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Dad’s workers never went on strike. He hated unions but disguised that by being so friendly with his workers that they wouldn’t have considered striking against their buddy, “George.” Through an accident of history, the union representing the workers was the Teamsters. Dad loved that. The union he feared with the Seamstresses. They knew the economics of sewing machine factories (which Animal Fair mostly was) but the Teamster union guys were ignorant thugs whom Dad could fool.
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Here you go Steve. I’m sure they sang just like this at your dad’s factory.
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Thanks, Dale! Dad’s factory didn’t sound just like that, but those big bins on wheels were part of the scene. As workers finished sewing an item, they’d chuck it in the bin so it could eventually be moved to the next step in the manufacturing process. In the case of stuffed animals, the next step was “turning.” The animal skin would be inside out, with seams exposed, right after sewing. There would be a slit along the belly where the seams were not sewn. Women with dowel rods turned the animal skin right-side out, inverting it through that belly slit. The stuffers would then fill the critter with chopped soft styrofoam, blowing the stuffing into the skin through that opening. The opening was sewn shut by hand, after which fine detail was put on by “finishers.”
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No, but they used a LOT of airplane glue to apply plastic eyes on all of his animals!
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D-con and airplane glue! What a combination!
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Is teaching speeching?
What about German sermons?
Is consulting consoling and
teacher teaching overreaching?
About these professions I am now confessing.
Was I just talking or giving a speech?
But along the way I wore out my throat,
oversold every trite anecdote,
made of the audience a goat.
But every so often, maybe one time in ten . . . .
And that one time in Chicago to an audience of 5000
And the funeral for a difficult but Green parishioner
The first day on Huck Finn and the last with Scarlet Letter.
The odds were with me, every once in a while my words had to cross the barrier.
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you are in good form this morning clyde.
nice offering.
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Turning the audience into goats is quite a trick, and probably not one to boast about.
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Twas a sad confession.
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Is Bubby’s Mr. Kostner the Mr. Kostner who taught where I did?
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I’m guessing none of Bubby’s teachers could get a real job in education. Certainly not Mr. Boozenporn!
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I’m biting my tongue . . or sit biting my fingertips
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“Members of the Nobel Committee, this is a great honor. I want to thank you. I don’t deserve this recognition. No, really, I don’t deserve it. I didn’t get where I am today by doing anything the Nobel Committee would notice. I think you must have the wrong Bill Nelson. Don’t be embarrassed. It happens all the time when you have a name like Bill Nelson. So, what’s for dinner?”
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ha ha!
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One day an injustice will be righted and the Nobel folks will acknowledge outstanding achievement in faux fruit.
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Reblogged this on The Wrong Mistake.
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nice to see you back rico
are you getting ready for the bike riding season or are you a year round rider?
i like the name of your blog
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Thanks, Tim! 150 year record breaking cold kept me on Metro Transit and ride-sharing but am biking now in Minneapolis. Stay Tuned!
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Thanks Rico!
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i have occasion to get up and do a little song and dance in front of folks and i generally have a fairly good result. the main ideas need to be crystallized in my brain otherwise i get off into la la land talking about something that i have no real reason to focus on but as long as it is in my discussion it has the ability to take on a life of its own. keep the message simple and in the front center of the speech. i can go on forever but i have a mission to meet when making a speech and that is the challenge.
the one i have not given yet that i am looking forward to is the speech for the project i am working on right now. i will gladly accept the recognition for the wonderful stuff this new project does in so many facets of its being. i am trying to focus on getting that speech to come to fruition.
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In the last few months, I’ve volunteered at a local treatment center. My “theme” has been to inspire and energize the group in order to show them that there can be a joyful life after giving up their addictions. Before we sit down and I actually share my story (kind of a speech), I have them all encircle me, put on “Shake, Shake, Shake, Shake Your Booty”, then break out into ass-swinging dancing. Talk about energizing a crowd! Often, a few of them just can’t resist joining in with some moves.
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Oops – I meant to say AFTER we sit down! The only problem with this is that I’m pretty winded and have a difficult time catching my breath in order to even talk.
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I spoke one of the eulogies at my dad’s funeral. My sister was taking care of his professional bio, so I let myself tell what things made him laugh. I noted that while he did not agree with Garrison’s politics (this got a chuckle), he laughed out loud at GK’s story about the guy that faked his death so he could attend his own funeral – something like “They say such nice things about you, and it seemed a shame he would probably miss it by just a few days…” It was well received.
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