A dinner

Dear Friends -

Hey, Brother Pete, I was thinking about you tonight - wish you would have been here.

I've talked before about my attachment to Scouting. Every morning, I prepare my "to do" list for the day, and at the top of it, I write my major life goals. I have 5 at the moment. The first one is to live by my Masonic obligation (that's an oath), and by the Scout Oath and Law. If I can do that, I've had a pretty good day. So Scouting is really important to me, and this year I'll get my 40 year pin.

A couple of years ago, the council (that's the local program provider) did a "Distinguished Citizen Dinner" which essentially trades on the popularity of the honoree to raise money. That was done for the local congressman (who is now in a world of political and legal shit, but that's another story.) The Governor of West Virginia, Joe Manchin, is a native of this county. I'm an acqaintance of his (which is zero big deal, he has thousands of acquaintances), and his chief of staff is a good friend of mine. We approached the Governor's office months ago about getting him out to be an honoree, and finally got a commitment on April 10. The dinner was tonight. That gave us 30 days to put it together, which isn't a lot of time.

We held this at a local conference center run by other friends. (That's an advantage to living in a small town, there is a lot of networking.) Originally, the owner gave us a price of $14 per person, which is good. My partner, who has been in hospitality/food service business over the years, pointed out that if we were getting $125 a shot, $1,000 for a table, we had better have better eats because we wanted people to remember it and come back. So, with her help, we got a much nicer layout for $20 a shot, which is still pretty good.

We turned out about 80 people, less than I hoped, but more than I feared. We'll clear about $8,000 on the night. We have two dinners in different counties earlier in the year, and make pretty big money at those, because they have been going for 40 years and donors are used to coming. So, in our planning, we have to stay away from that donor pool. We can do better next year, and will formalize the committee and meet for a debrief/early planning session in a couple of weeks.

The Governor's address was totally appropriate. There was none of the crap about atheists and gays, that is soooooo secondary to the good of the program, and just doesn't figure here. We are in the business for youth, that's what counts. His uncle, A. James Manchin (Google him, helluva guy) was a closer acquaintance of mine, and he was the greatest cheerleader West Virginia ever had. The Gov. talks with his spirit. (A. James was a great guy. He did a LOT for EMS in West Virginia and in this county. However, when he got real bad chest pains in the night, he didn't call the 911 center that his efforts had helped build, and the rescue squad didn't get the call until he was in cardiac arrest. He didn't make it.)

For the past month, I've felt the presence (or maybe influence) of my father, who died in 1999. He REALLY knew how to run a meeting/dinner/award thing, and I learned by example. He was quite proud that we were the first father and son to have been presidents of the council. (The year after he died, I was running a recognition dinner. There was a minister who was getting a Silver Beaver award, which is the best a council can give. That minister spent the last night of my Dad's life at his bedside. The award I hung on him was the same one that had been given to my dad 25 years before.) Anyway, my dad taught me that there was one way to run an affair like that, to plan and plan and plan, and keep it going so nobody got bored. He also taught me that there are three ways to award stuff. The easiest way is to get a $20 box of parchment paper at Office Depot, take some clip art or whatever-the-hell you call images on a computer, use a big laser printer, add a $5 frame from WalMart, and you can make large quantities of stuff people will appreciate. I've done that for years, and it works well. The second way is to make the award something tangible and nice. We used a nice, engraved cut crystal bowl tonight, and I was OK with that, it'll stand out. The third way is to go for the useful & unexpected. Only this morning, I thought of how to do that. We did a little schtick about all scouts carry pocket knives, where was his, he didn't have one, so we gave him one. Actually, it was the same one that I blogged about a few months ago, a Buck brand that I was so offended was made in China, I swore I'd never carry it. It was just a nice touch, and it worked. Purely shades of my Dad.

So, it was a good end to a miserable day. Oh, my desktop computer quit working today, amongst other very, very annoying things, and I had one of those meltdowns that I absolutely hate about myself. So the evening was good.

Oh, a dear friend, a second father really, who is going through a very nasty divorce came with us, sat next to my mother and they chatted all night.

Wish you had been here.

Mizpah!

R