Coming to a quick end

Maybe I should have washed her mini-van instead.
Back in January, Cheryl Burkett, a guidance counselor at Winchester Community High School asked me if I’d give a little talk at the school’s career day. She was putting together the event and wanted me to speak about journalism, the newspaper business, and some of the work I’ve done on free press development projects overseas.
No problem, I said. Happy to help.
Then, within a matter of weeks, life began to get more complicated.
As January was winding down, I was approached about taking on a project for the U.S. Embassy in Burma. Before I knew it, I was saying yes to that as well. By the first week of February, my calendar had become unworkable.
So I called Cheryl and gave her my apologies. Uncle Sam took precedence over our friends in Randolph County.
I felt lousy about cancelling. “Tell you what,” I told her. “I’ll make it up to you. If you ever need a speaker again, I’ll step in. Heck, I’d even wash your car to make it up to you.”
Turns out, she drives a mini-van.
But when she called about 10 days ago, she didn’t want me to wash it. She was calling due the rain check for a talk at the school.
Still feeling bad about my earlier cancellation, I agreed immediately.
Then I learned the particulars: I’d be speaking to students during finals week, and I had an hour and a half to fill. Not only was it finals week, it was the next to the last day of school.
Under those circumstances, I’m not sure I would have listened to me. At the very least, I would have trouble staying awake.
Scrambling to put together a program that could fill 90 minutes, I did a sort of mash-up of two different PowerPoint presentations. It looked okay as I paged through it.
But it did sort of remind me of watching someone else’s travel slides while hearing a lecture on double-entry bookkeeping.
There was, I feared, virtually no way to keep it interesting enough in a climate of final exams and pending summer vacation.
Still, I’d made a promise.
So last week, I drove down to Winchester and delivered on that pledge.
The folks at the high school were terrific. In no time, they’d set me up with a projector, a laptop, a remote control for the PowerPoint, and a hand-held microphone. Meanwhile, Cheryl had taken me around to meet the principal and the director of The Force, Winchester’s longtime powerhouse marching band.
At the appointed time, kids first started dribbling in then came in a bunch to the auditorium. Other students were taking finals or were in study hall.
Apparently, listening to the boring old guy from Jay County was optional.
“Do you do magic tricks?” asked a girl as she sat down in the front row.
“Maybe I should learn some,” I told her.
The students were tired; finals will do that. And a few were antsy; the last week of school will do that.
But they were remarkably attentive and polite when it came to listening about things like censorship in Burma or pressures on independent journalists in Uzbekistan.
Just the same, I sensed about halfway through that boredom was settling in. Without thinking about it, I speeded up the presentation. By my calculations, I’d had enough material to talk for 90 minutes; but after stepping on the gas, I found I was pretty much done with 15-20 minutes to spare.
“Do you have any questions for Mr. Ronald?” Mrs. Burkett asked.
A few yawns were stifled, but eventually a few surfaced.
Still there were minutes left, and I was standing there with a microphone in my hand and nothing to say.
“No more questions?” I said in a voice that was clearly pleading for questions.
A slouching kid raised his hand. I pointed to him.
“What’s your favorite color?”
That produced a few laughs. I turned back toward the stage, repeating his question for those who hadn’t heard his witticism.
“My favorite color?” I said, as if I were ruminating something earthshaking. And then I saw a sign with the school’s mascot. “That’s easy,” I said. “My favorite color is Falcon gold.”
I should have escaped in the round of applause that followed, but one girl followed up quickly: “What’s your favorite color when you’re in Jay County?”
Sounds to me as if she has a future in journalism.

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