#Yearof50. Entry 3: Public Speaker

So it’s 1976, maybe 1977. Yours truly is onstage at Churchill Street Public School in Ottawa, narrating the Nativity Story. I’m not sure how it came to be that I was selected for this very important job, but clearly the teacher saw something in little colour-coordinated me.

This photo surely must be my first public speaking role (And what a lovely striped shirt). It’s something I have loved doing for as long as I can remember. Just give me a mic, I always like to say. In future posts I will talk about my time in theatre. This post is about antecedents, my dears. For while certainly a performance, public speaking is me representing myself and not a character. Or, perhaps more truthfully, the character is me.

Those who went to high school with me will remember they would either see me on stage in plays or having way too much fun doing morning announcements (including what might be considered mini radio-style commercials I wrote and performed with friends). There was also a failed, yet valiant, attempt to become student council president, spirited model UN debates, and I helped host a Much Music Video Dance Party.

At Queen’s, I successfully ran and was elected to a few student government offices, and I also recall doing rather passionate reading of a papers of mine at the Grad Club, and reading my poetry at coffee houses at the JDUC. Oh, the endless deepness of a know-it-all 20-something. Fast forward to the Aughts where I spent 6 years recruiting for Queen’s. I later calculated that I gave over 500 presentations in every Canadian province and in 25 countries.

So, it is very possible that I spontaneously spoke or sang (or both) at some friends’ weddings. And colleagues may have wondered what attention-seeking creature had taken to the stage at work events. Alas,I can take no blame. Surely it rests with that teacher at Churchill Street Public School.