NP: Me, bragging again.
Glenn Scheper
glenn_scheper at earthlink.net
Thu Oct 23 08:22:45 CDT 2008
I did my icebreaker prepared talk at Toastmasters.
I got the prize ribbon, beating a H.S. principle.
Below is my text, with differing indents to help
me see points, but I ended up talking w/o notes.
I even wrote a C program that counts characters,
to proportion a timeline for practice recitals:
Due to memory lapses, I only reached my 4:25 point
after the 6-minute red card was shown, and stopped
at 6:16. Lucky that line sounded like an end point.
I owe it all to my rants and raves on the P list!
0:00
0:00 Thank you, Mr. Toastmaster,
0:01 and fellow Toastmasters,
0:03 and distinguished guests.
0:04
0:05
0:05 I was born a poor black child.
0:06
0:07 I love the cognitive dissonance of saying that!
0:09
0:09
0:10 Actually, my upbringing was orderly,
0:11
0:12 like,
0:12 "Father knows best",
0:14 or,
0:14 "Leave it to Beaver".
0:15
0:15
0:16 My father only ever stressed scholarship.
0:18
0:18 But scholarship as its own end,
0:20 not a means to anything.
0:21
0:21 A lawyer,
0:22 he promised me ten cents for every word
0:24 I learned out of the dictionary.
0:26
0:26
0:26 With no plan,
0:27 and left to my own,
0:28
0:28 I did not advance in the task,
0:30 but I kept memorizing
0:31 the first few words:
0:32
0:33 the indefinite article A,
0:34 aardvark,
0:35 anteater.
0:36
0:36 I never saw a dime.
0:37 But the dictionary did become my favorite reading.
0:40
0:40
0:40 I excelled in math and science.
0:42
0:42 In the fifties,
0:43 the world appeared to be a technocracy.
0:45
0:45 I wanted to grow up to be a scientist,
0:47 working in a government institution.
0:49
0:49
0:50
0:50 I was what's called a weak-atheist,
0:52 seeing all religion as only fable.
0:54
0:54 I would have become a secular humanist,
0:56 if I had even known such term,
0:57
0:58 for alas,
0:58 I eschewed all fiction,
1:00 and with it,
1:00 the humanities.
1:01
1:02
1:02
1:02 But life took a different course.
1:04
1:04
1:05
1:05 Although a sophomore at UCLA,
1:06 I was still an innocent.
1:08
1:08 I joined the Army to leave home,
1:10 and discover life.
1:11
1:11
1:11
1:12 The Navy recruiter said they wanted college graduates.
1:14
1:15 The Marine recruiter had a spooky
1:16 thousand-yard stare,
1:18 and he scared me.
1:19
1:19 I told the Army recruiter
1:20 that I wanted to drive armored personelle carriers.
1:23 He said sure,
1:24 sign up!
1:24
1:25 Tests showed I had no aptitude for soldierly things.
1:27
1:28 So they gave me Russian language training for a year,
1:30 and stationed me in Germany,
1:32 in the Army Security Agency.
1:33
1:34
1:34 I can still remember one Russian phrase:
1:36 "Ne strelyieetee!"
1:37 which means,
1:38 "Don't shoot."
1:39
1:39
1:39 I adopted the widespread but strictly Ver-boat-en,
1:42
1:42 and sodden,
1:43 indulgence of smoking hashish.
1:45
1:45
1:45 When I returned home,
1:47 I was reading about electronics,
1:48 and working as a plastics injection
1:50 molding mechanic,
1:51 at PaperMate,
1:52 on huge injection molding presses
1:54 that could drop out
1:55 128 pen barrels
1:56 from a single shot of plastic.
1:58
1:58
1:58 I was doing very badly in school,
2:00
2:00 smoking pot,
2:01 and skipping lots of classes.
2:03
2:03
2:03
2:03
2:04 But I had a mission:
2:05
2:05
2:05
2:06 PaperMate used a laser light beam
2:07 and multiple mirrors
2:09
2:09 to shine light back-and-forth
2:11 across the mold cavities,
2:12
2:12 to detect if any pen barrel
2:14 failed to drop out of the mold.
2:15
2:16 The laser and mirrors had
2:17 continual alignment problems,
2:19 which would often prevent
2:20 the presses from running.
2:22
2:22
2:22 I was inspired with a novel idea,
2:24
2:24 and worked for months designing,
2:26 and submitted my idea:
2:27
2:27 to use a pulsed L.E.D.,
2:29 and a synchronously gated
2:30 optical detector,
2:31
2:31 one pair for each row of mold cavities.
2:33
2:34
2:34 PaperMate adopted my idea,
2:35
2:36 and awarded me twelve hundred dollars.
2:38
2:38
2:38 With that credential,
2:40
2:40 I advanced through several electronics jobs,
2:42 and into a new field of computer programming,
2:44
2:45 and am now a Senior Software Engineer.
2:47
2:47
2:47 But at that same time,
2:48
2:49 1976,
2:49
2:50 immature,
2:50 shy,
2:51 avoidant,
2:52 neurotic,
2:52
2:53 failing in school,
2:54
2:54
2:54 I had a nervous breakdown:
2:56 an acute psychosis.
2:57
2:57
2:57
2:58 I cannot remember the night,
2:59 but I had stayed up all night.
3:01
3:01
3:01 I came out of my bedroom the next morning,
3:03 to discuss with my father
3:05 a pressing idea:
3:06 that I had to kill him.
3:07
3:07
3:07 I told my father
3:08 a large candle on the table was a bomb,
3:10 and if I were to light it,
3:12 the whole world would explode.
3:13
3:14 He handed me his Zippo
3:15 and challenged me to light it.
3:16
3:17 I lit the candle,
3:18 and dashed away into my bedroom,
3:19 as if that little distance could save me.
3:21
3:22
3:22
3:22 By the end of the day,
3:23
3:24 my racing thoughts had turned inward
3:26 until I was nearly catatonic.
3:27
3:27 I was shaking two stones
3:29 violently together in my hand,
3:30
3:31 and would not speak,
3:32 or reply to any question.
3:33
3:34
3:34 I was trying to stop vibrating,
3:35
3:36 and to think myself smaller,
3:37
3:38 like a pebble,
3:38 a grain of sand,
3:39 a speck,
3:40
3:40 to escape divine inspection
3:42
3:42 and the wrath of God.
3:43
3:44
3:44 My parents took me to a
3:45 crisis intervention center,
3:47
3:47 where the nurse coaxed me
3:48 to take her golden elixer,
3:50
3:50 by confronting me with:
3:51
3:52 "Do you want to be crazy?"
3:53
3:53
3:54 I took the med,
3:54 and laid down on a bed,
3:56
3:56 becoming totally engaged with a sunbeam
3:58 coming in the window.
3:59
4:00
4:00 I may have looked peaceful,
4:01 but I was not resting at all.
4:03
4:03 I was in mental agony.
4:04
4:05
4:05
4:05 My mind was fixated on this idea:
4:07
4:07 That I am an atomic bomb,
4:08 about to blow up the entire universe.
4:10
4:11 The beating of my heart was its timer,
4:12 counting downward towards extinction.
4:15
4:15
4:15
4:15 Although I could not move my inert body,
4:17
4:18 I mentally winced with every heartbeat,
4:20 thinking it would be my last.
4:21
4:22
4:22
4:22
4:22 But I did not explode,
4:24 ending the world.
4:25
4:25
4:25
4:25
4:26 Since then, I have learned to recast my psychosis
4:28
4:28 as a divine intervention
4:30 in my going-nowhere life.
4:31
4:32
4:32 God turned me around sharply,
4:33
4:34 and forced me to learn psychology,
4:35
4:36 to passionately study religion,
4:37
4:38 also literature;
4:39
4:39
4:39 To become fascinated with the end of the world,
4:42
4:42 or rather,
4:43 the end of the dispensation of grace,
4:45
4:45 which,
4:45 I say,
4:46
4:46 is marked by a much prophesied spectacle:
4:48
4:49 the 2001 collapse
4:50
4:50 of the World Trade Center towers.
4:52
4:52
4:52
4:53 I hope to speak
4:53 of that in future talks.
4:55
4:55
4:55
4:56
4:56 Thank you, fellow Toastmasters.
4:58
4:58
4:58 Mr. Toastmaster.
4:59
5:00
Yours truly,
Glenn Scheper
http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
Copyleft(!) Forward freely.
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