Point of View: A New World Record

Recently, I listened for eight of 11 waking hours, sitting in on a Killer Bee reunion on a Friday night and, the following morning, attending an equally long Hall of Fame induction ceremony at East Hampton High School. 

It was, I thought, a new world record for me. I’ve had a long love affair with my own voice, beginning in grade school when I first began to wave my hands wildly whenever questions were posed — at least in English, history, religion, and foreign language classes. “Teacher, teacher!”

Perhaps that is why I became a journalist, sensing I needed to balance out a proclivity to proselytize and to blurt out answers with some attentiveness to others.

(Speaking of proselytizing, I wonder why it is that this paper has included it among its epistolary no-nos, along with libel, obscenity, and nonexclusivity. Aren’t just about all letter writers proselytizing, inasmuch as they’re trying to persuade others to their point of view?)

You’ll notice that in regard to hand-waving I left out math. I tried to blend in with the woodwork in math class. In math it was the silence of the hams. Begin talking about train A and train B even to this day and I throw up my hands, not as an importunate show-off, but as someone about to be assailed by a swarm of yellow jackets, which actually happened recently and was not pleasant. 

Knowing something more than math’s basics (I can figure out tips in my head and slice budgetary pies with a reasonable degree of accuracy) ought to be on my bucket list, for I do believe in self-improvement, but while I know my days are numbered, I’ll probably go to my grave innumerate. I know math has its delights. In the next lifetime perhaps.

Back to paying attention to others, I’m glad when it comes to the above-cited cases that I did, even though the sessions lasted four hours each. It wasn’t as if I were at a town bored meeting or attending a political forum; however, the Killer Bee alums’ reunion, though born of criticism having to do with the recently premiered “Killer Bees” documentary film, and the Hall of Fame ceremonies were joyous occasions. 

And joy — at least when I’m thinking straight and simply listening — is what it’s all about.