Getting to the Good Stuff: But First, This…

So I get an email late yesterday from the person who was suppose to tend to the logistics this morning in Wytheville and possibly to introduce me. Should I be prepared to introduce myself?

I was talking with somebody recently about introductions and bios for someone of my certain age. I reminisced how easy it was filling out a job application just after high school. It read…

I was a hall monitor.

But now…

Ah well. I will be inflicting my verbiage on an audience in Hatcher Auditorium at the Presbyterian Church–appropriately on Church Street, where one, then another major denomination have their columned buildings side by side, and our son asked at age three “Daddy, why isn’t there just one church and everybody goes there?”

The last time I was in this particular auditorium was to listen to our daughter deliver her sixth-grade prize-winning essay on a topic none of us can quite remember. Before that, there was a boring speaker. Today, that’d be me–the necessary evil friends and family must endure to get to the good stuff.

I have sketched out a basic framework within which to channel my remarks, with the assumption that there will be a higher-than-average number of writers in the group, including the prize winners who will be reading their pieces (I think.)

Beyond that, I’ll hope there are some good questions from the audience to twig into discussions worth having. If not, they’ll be more necessary evil until my time is up.

Should be interesting!

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. I just wrote a bio for my 50th reunion, and boy, was I consternated by how long it was, even though I left out important stuff, like marriages.
    I am curious how it went Friday morning. I hope they treated you well, in spite of your being the necessary evil.