Tag Archives: Meetings

Events of the Evening

30 Nov

This was going to be a simple evening. After work and a waxing, the plan was to head to my girlfriend’s house to decorate the Christmas tree. Work went well. The waxing went well, if slightly painful. Then, it was time for the fun to start. And, start it did.

First, I get a call from the fairgrounds. I am on the oversight committee, and a meeting had been called at the last-minute to discuss an upcoming event. Wait, it’s not really an upcoming event. It’s an event that we hope is upcoming. Right away, obstacles were being thrown into my path, but this one was easily handled. I didn’t go to the meeting.

Excitement abounds.

Excitement abounds.

The drive to her house was pleasant. It’s a winding road that goes through the countryside. The deer were not out yet, so there was not danger that I would run over a large animal. However, there was the danger that I would get caught behind a tractor, and that danger presented itself.

One of the hazards of living in the South.

One of the hazards of living in the South.

After some slow going, I made it to her house with the anticipation of eating good pizza and hanging good ornaments. Then, I heard the news. Her cousin, the hair stylist (in the old days they were called hair dressers), was coming over to work on my girlfriend’s hair. I decided to take a nap.

I’m not sure how long the nap lasted, but, for some reason, I dreamed that I was in an old timey beauty shop with women talking and those big hair dryers blowing. You know, the ones that women would sit under.

Take us to your leader.

Take us to your leader.

Anyway, I was awakened from this dream and told that it was time to get the pizza. At the pizza place, the guy was full of questions. My girlfriend lives in a really small town where everyone knows everyone else. He didn’t know me. After answering his questions satisfactorily, I was allowed to leave with the pizza.

When I got to the house, we scarfed the pizza down, and, with the hair far from being done, I hopped onto the iPad. Through the next couple of hours, I randomly went through the Internet and looked up the following:

The cast of Megaforce, a great 1980s movie starring Barry Bostwick

Yes, it is a flying motorcycle. Never say movies of the 80s were not classics.

Yes, it is a flying motorcycle. Never say movies of the 80s were not classics.

The farewell speech by Richard Nixon on the last day as president

His father had the poorest lemon farm in California.

His father had the poorest lemon farm in California.

The best songs of Eddie and the Cruisers

SPOILER: Eddie lives.

SPOILER: Eddie lives.

The previews for several episodes of The American Experience, with a special focus on George Armstrong Custer

During Custer's Last Stand, I don't think he was standing.

During Custer’s Last Stand, I don’t think he was standing.

The last speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr.

The night before his tragic assassination, Martin Luther King said that he had "seen the Promised Land".

The night before his tragic assassination, Martin Luther King said that he had “seen the Promised Land”.

There was more, but you get the point. I was all over the place. Then, my girlfriend brought her cousin into the room so I could tell her about Abraham Lincoln. We saw Lincoln last night, and my girlfriend didn’t understand why politicians were debating about outlawing slavery at the end of the Civil War when the war was being fought to end slavery.

I am not going to get into a big historical discussion here, but I had to explain that the Civil War was not as simple as many people have been taught.

I write all of that to write this: I went to my girlfriend’s house to decorate the tree, and we did everything but decorate the tree. After she got her hair colored, she spent the rest of the night fretting over how bad it looked. After filling my mind with Internet info, I was fretting over my head beginning to hurt.

In the end, we decided to go ahead and decorate the tree. We didn’t know when we would be able to do it again, and we knew that her daughter would be disappointed if we didn’t do what we had planned on.

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Death by Meeting

11 Apr

I was going to do a little blogging last night, but after sitting in a two-hour meeting listening to my brain cells scream as they jumped to their deaths, I decided that it just wasn’t in me to put fingers to keyboard. On top of that, I had to watch the season finale of Justified, the third greatest show in television history. As you can tell by the title, this post isn’t about the show. It is about the meeting that I had to sit through.

Before my rant, I must say that the people on the committee are good folks. They volunteer their time to help the community, and I commend them for it. I am more of a big idea guy who likes to think stuff up and back away to let someone else do the work. However, there are times when people get focused on the details and forget the big picture. Last night’s meeting was about details and went something like this.

Minutes – You know when people take the time to read the minutes of the last meeting word-for-word that it is going to be along night. Needless to say, we talked about the minutes for a while.

Sunshine Report – This is where announcements are made about people being sick or having other troubles. This is a nice thing to do I suppose. I’m not sure why it is in the regular meeting because these things can be talked about after. But, it was fine except for the lady who talked about her own problems. She is going into the hospital next week and needs our prayers. Something about that makes me feel weird. I’m not sure people should announce their own problems.

Committee Reports – This didn’t take long at all. We talked about buying some heaters for a few minutes. This despite the fact that there is no money. How do I know this? Because the treasurer didn’t show up for the Treasurer’s Report that was supposed to come before the Sunshine Report.

(Oh, I should tell you that the committee oversees a historic village in my town. It’s not really historic because old buildings have been moved there, and new ones that look old have been added to it. I’ve tried to tell them it’s not really historic, but I am only a history professor and really don’t know what I am talking about.)

Controversy arose during this part because of a scheduling conflict. There is a free event and a pay event Saturday. The guy in charge of the pay event was concerned that free people might get in. The chairwoman of the committee got really upset and said the free event has been planned for a year, and the pay event needs to work with it. This is a good time to remind you that we have no money.

Next, the pay event guy talked about his big project – live online streaming of country music from our site. It sounds good, but I don’t trust him. He’s from Australia, but each time he talks I think of the word carpetbagger. He has been talking about this for a year without anything happening. There always seems to be an excuse.

Also, we are building the world’s largest dinner triangle – you know, a thing that people rang on farms to tell field hands that food was ready. It looks like this.

Except, ours is going to be 10 feet on each side.

After this announcement, it was time to talk about acquiring more buildings. Remember, we have no money, so adding buildings is a good idea. Old buildings are expensive to keep up but adding some more shouldn’t be a problem.

One good idea came out of this part of the meeting. We are going to inventory our possessions. I was going to suggest some ways to protect our artifacts, but that’s really not the point I reckon.

Once the committee reports were completed, we moved to Future Projects. They are working on a 25th Anniversary book and want to copy Foxfire. I hope they don’t plagiarise.

Of course, we also talked about the upcoming county fair. We have the largest one in Tennessee don’t you know. Very impressive indeed.

Finally, we got to Unfinished Business, and a local producer of commemorative knives presented the idea of us buying some. We could put our name on the blade and sell them. Unfortunately, buying the knives will cost $16,500, and we have a lot of commemorative stuff that’s been lying around for years. I wonder how much building maintenance we could do for $16,500.

That;s it for the meeting, but I have one more pet peeve. People involved in this village address each other in a strange way. They call people Mr. Joe or Miss Jane – mixing prefix titles with first names. I’m not sure it’s bad, but I think it’s weird.

That was my meeting. When it was over, I was thinking it would have been better to be in a shootout with Raylan or Boyd. You’re probably thinking that also would have been better than reading this post.

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