I trundled my bootie down to my alma mater (graduate) University of Kentucky to speak at the McConnell Conference on Children's Literature this weekend. This was the 10th anniversary of the conference I helped plan as a student. This was teh 40th annual! I got to greet nearly all my old professors. The wonderful lady the conference is named after passed away in 2006 :-(
Pam Munoz Ryan, George Ella Lyon, and Denise Fleming were the headliners. :-)
I spoke twice on what it's like to select the Newbery (actually it was kind of a slightly informative comedy routine). First time was after dinner & a very funny talk by Pam Munoz Ryan...and I was nervous. SO I felt I kind of sucked. The second time was well after breakfast and after a very funny talk by Denise Fleming. I was a bit more relaxed & the audience was more responsive...that time I felt I did a better job & got some nice ego strokes from the audience. Talked some good book talk too. AND I met several nifty peoples!
There was one small casualty...or rather two--when I returned home to the partially red state of Ohio from the obviously red state of Kentucky my bumper stickers were missing..."End This War" and "Impeach Bush" But that's OK, oh enemy of free speech whoever you are, it's too late to impeach Bush (thanks SO much for taking that off the table Pelosi. Loser!) It was time for a new one anyhoo. I ordered "Worst President EVER!" :-) In the meantime, I have my 1/20/09 hat to wear!
My Son, the stand-up comedian! You must have inherited some of my love of humor and desire to make people laugh. I would liked to have been there to see and hear you. Your post reminded me of the times when I taught electronics at the Naval Reserve Training Center in Dayton. After I finished the lesson, I used to sit on the desk in the front of the room and tell jokes. It started feeling like stand-up comedy sometimes.
Posted by: PappawJack | 03/12/2008 at 10:13 AM