So often have I made fun of myself for things I've done in my life, that I fear I've repeated a story, and that would be pretty bad, even with my declining, 68-year-old memory. But in this case, I did a search, and nope, I hadn't told this one. So here goes.
It has now been 40 years since last I walked on stage in a professional theatrical performance. Although I've been on stage hundreds of times since, it was never as an actor playing a part in an opera, show or play; that all ended in 1979. By that time I was in the IT field during the day and, not coincidentally, starting to raise a family.
Through the '70s, though, I had performed in well over a hundred productions, including about 75 of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, as has been documented in other pieces on this site. Their dialogue, the brilliant words and phrases of Mr. Gilbert, apparently remains with us, possibly longer than we'd like.
My career, as a defense contractor, took a fairly arc-like path, rising up to vice-presidency and senior vice-presidency with assorted contracting firms, and then a gradual decline into a consulting role when I decided to work from my home as I got older.
About ten years ago, nearing 60, I was on that glide path, managing a program for Northrop Grumman in Virginia at one of their main buildings there. The building had an adjacent parking garage, with a walkway to the building itself on the second floor. Where it came into the building, there was a little mini-Starbucks, and I often used that to meet visitors, since they didn't have to enter Security if we just met there.
And so it was that I had a meeting with a pair of representatives from a company that wanted to do business with the program I was running. I had these types of meetings quite often, and since it was convenient, we just used the little coffee corner, grabbing a little table and a few chairs to talk.
I did not know the people beforehand. One of them was maybe 30 or so, and he did a fair amount of the talking for their side, which was most of the talking for the three of us. I had earlier introduced myself and my program, told them how we operated and what the parameters would be for any type of deal. Then he took over for his presentation, and I asked questions and commented along the way.
After a half-hour or so, we were wrapping up the discussion and chatting on next steps, when the younger fellow who had done most of the talking asked, from out of nowhere, "Did you use to perform Gilbert and Sullivan?".
This was definitely out of context for the discussion that had just occurred, so my mind leaped to the logical conclusion -- he had seen me perform a lot and recognized me. Then that selfsame mind did a little hasty computation, and figured that unless the young man had gone to a show prenatally, and had powers of perception beyond mere mortals, that wasn't the answer.
"Ah ...", I thought. Clearly, I must have dropped a little pithy phrase that would have been in one of the operettas, and used it without thinking. I certainly did not recall actually having done that, but I thought it at least possible that it had happened at some point in the half-hour previous. Yes, that had to have been it.
"Why do you ask?", I said. "Did I use a phrase from an operetta of theirs?"
"Well, yes", he replied. "Three times."
I took a sip of coffee and nodded silently. The implication was pretty bad. If I dropped three such phrases in a half-hour of discussion on a completely unrelated topic, 30 years after the last time I performed any of those operettas, I must still do it, subconsciously, in every conversation that I have.
Yet another thing I have to work on. For all the things I have to fix, well, you see, I've got a little list. Oops.
Copyright 2019 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton
Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton
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