To Be or Not to Be Funny

This past weekend I attended more Traditional Official Visits, including the visit to my own Associate Grand Patron's district.

Now there is a tradition that when there is a Grand Officer in a District, the Grand Officer is invited to give a welcome or greetings at the start of the Official Visit.  If there are Past Grands Matrons or Patrons in your District, they do a welcome and then the Grand Officer does a greeting.

I was very proud of the awesome job that my man did with his remarks, which, in my admittedly biased opinion, contained meaningful content and was delivered very well.  I admit that I sat in my seat smiling quite broadly as spoke since I again had the opportunity to reflect on how fortunate I was in my choice of man and maybe a little bit on how well I did in the choosing.  I am still very happy with my choice, which is a very good thing I think.

There is also a tradition followed most years, but not all, that when the Grand Family comes to your District, the Grand Officer, Past Grands and sometimes recent former Grand Officers provide welcome gifts or goodie bags to the visiting Grand Officers.

So my turn is coming up this Friday, as the Official Visit comes to my District.  Besides the challenge of finding the time to put gifts together (I may call it a day and buy a bunch of Starbucks cards - everyone seems to like them), I have to put my own remarks together and that is proving to pose an unexpected dilemma.

The first year I had to do remarks was in 2008 when I was Grand Warder.  I gave what was probably the shortest greeting speech ever seen at an Official Visit, perfectly in keeping with the theme I might add, and which received thundering applause.  But if I had known then that I would have more speeches to do, I might not have used up the best one first.

In each of the three successive years, I had a partner in crime because there was another Grand Officer from my District all three years.  So since I had done a speech already and had more to come, I asked them what sort of tone or speech they wanted to give.  For some reason, all three of them asked me to write the speech, which I did, but I did squeeze them for input.  So in 2009, my cohort wanted any speech that ended with a particular line and it was a serious theme, so we did that. In 2010 and 2011, my cohort wanted a more entertaining speech and we did that.  This year I have to do a solo speech, so I had decided for myself that I would turn my hand to a little comedy writing and present something funny, although doing it without a straight man is a bit tougher.

I had just figured out how to do my presentation when tragedy struck.  One of the three Past Grands who live in my District passed away last Friday.  There is no doubt in my mind that the welcome that will now have to be given by just one person will have to be serious and will no doubt address our terrible loss.  But where does that leave my remarks?  I don't want to seem inappropriate, but at the same time another serious speech would probably sound either like a eulogy or like I should just say "Ditto" and be done with it.  Okay, based on my 2008 remarks (you'll have to ask in person for that story if you weren't there), I did seriously consider the Ditto speech, but only for a moment and it is not a real choice.

So do I go with funny or do I try to go with something dry and factual that everyone in the area has heard already, like the number of Chapters and their members and the type of fruit that used to be grown in the valley or the origin of Silicon Valley or . . . .?

When struggling with this question, what finally decided me was considering what our Past Grand Patron who passed away would have wanted.  He always wanted the members to enjoy themselves, loved a good humorous speech or anecdote and would have been the first person clapping, laughing and cheering if I delivered a good, funny speech.  So I think that I will have to dry my eyes after whatever remarks are included in the welcome speech and do my best to deliver the biggest laugh ever.  That is what he would have wanted and I am going to give it my best shot.

Next weekend, I will be in San Jose, Burlingame and Vallejo.