Chairman of the board? No thanks!

I have a lot of trouble managing people or serving on boards f directors. Am I the only one?

 

Maybe it started when the guys in my college fraternity elected me president because I was the oldest.

 

One of them threw a beer bottle onto the driveway of the Mormon church next door, just missing one of the worshipers. They called the police, who came to our door. Nobody would confess.

 

“If no one will admit it, we will just have to arrest your president,” the cop said. Nobody came forward. No law student was there to say, “That’s impossible.” But the officer left and I breathed a sigh of relief.

 

Or in the Army, when I began basic training as a squad leader. When the sergeant told me at lights-out that I had to find someone to clean stoves all night, I selected the closest guy, my bunk mate, lying above me, and then went to sleep.

 

When he came back the next morning, he was furious. Fortunately, I was relieved of the job in a week after getting a hairline fracture in my leg from marching. He got the job. I’ll give him credit: He never retaliated against a cripple.

 

I enjoy serving on some committees where we exchange ideas. But I made the mistake of joining boards of directors of four Washington area choruses at different times. The longest I could last was two years. A new person would always come and say “Hey, let’s try this!” And I didn’t want to say, “What a stupid idea! Been there, done that.”

 

When I complained about one board’s website, the executive director told me, “Websites don’t matter!” Really? I never heard that before.

 

On one board, I was the only person to question the new budget. Why doesn’t it compare the new figures to last year’s? “What? Oh, we never include that!”

 

Then there was the time I was an administrator for the Facebook pages of two choruses. One was raising money and I accidentally put the other chorus’s email address on it to make contributions. I eventually fixed it, but a manager of the contributing chorus was furious with me. Hmm, maybe she had a point.

 

-0-

 

Sports: A few times I was in the Oakland Raiders’ press box to help the Associated Press sports reporter cover the game. I was sent to the visiting team’s locker room to get comments from the players.

 

Since the Raiders played so well in the late 1960s, I usually ended up talking to really big linemen who were miserable and angry after a terrible defeat. A common quote would be “They just scored more points than we did.” I was too afraid of these violent brutes to ask them anything more substantial.

 

Of course we never published such a quote, but I’ll bet it would get printed today. TheWashington Post is now focusing on locker room chatter to go beyond facts of the game, which presumably everyone saw on TV.

 

Typical was last Sunday after college games. “I’m just so happy that we won,” said a quote from one incisive article. “This is a huge moment for this team,” said another. Still more: “It’s a great feeling, like nothing I have ever felt before.”

 

Ah, I now have more knowledge and wisdom about this vital sport!

 

—

Don’t miss “The Wizard of Oz” by the Halifax County Little Theatre Thursday through Sunday.  At the show last Sunday, I loved the good acting, music and scenery of this musical, based on the famous movie.

 

I could hear the actors clearly. The filmed graphics made you feel like you were in a real tornado. I can see why they scheduled the show at the high school. The Prizery stage couldn’t have held all of those munchkins!

 

Best actor award (drum roll) goes to: Toto, the dog. How can they get a real dog to behave like that? The credits after Toto’s name say Matilda LaMonica. Best supporting actor: The real live pony!