Category: Fettig, Art

I watched the movie Jumbo about a circus elephant and my wife Jean asked me “Art, did you see a circus very often when you were a kid?” And BOOM!!! It all came rushing back to my memory. I had a booking for the Michigan School Administrators or Principals, someone, and it was at the Amway Grand in Grand Rapids and we couldn’t leave the hotel.

Suddenly we were snowed in. I’d noticed a sign when I parked my car that the Barnum and Bailey Circus was playing that day within a block of the hotel. I’d given my presentation early and dressed warm to go outside. There was snow blowing everywhere but somehow I found the right place and went inside this big auditorium. Someone sold me a ticket and I took a seat up front. The whole auditorium was about empty. As I recall it, there were fewer than 40 of us attendees in that giant arena. The big circus band played the opening theme and for a couple of hours I was just a kid again watching this fantastic Greatest Show on Earth. Talk about the tradition that the show must go on…it went on and on and every performer gave our small enthusiastic group of appreciative onlookers their very best. It was a magnificent show with lots of clowns, pretty ladies on horses, elephants and acrobats and breathtaking aerial acts. It was everything you might dream about in a circus. When the show was over we all stood and applauded and applauded until we were worn out. Then I went back on the short trip to the hotel. By then the conference attendees were in a state of angry revolt. Obviously they had the bar open and some were to the point, when they realized they would have to spend another night in the hotel they were complaining and some were threatening a lawsuit for not being allowed to leave. I had a booking to speak in Chicago the next morning. I called the airport but it was closed but I got through to someone that told me that Capital was sending one flight going out to Chicago in about an hour and a half.

There was an announcement that no motor vehicles would be allowed on any of the roads. I packed up and made my way to my car in a parking lot. With just a bit of shoveling I managed to get out to the street and took a direct road to the airport. Snow was everywhere so I parked right in front of the entrance and left my car on the road. Sure enough. Capital had one plane and I was just there in time to catch it. In Chicago I got a cab right to my hotel for my speech. After my talk early the next morning a group of the attendees were headed back to the airport for a trip overseas and I caught a ride with them and boarded one of the first planes back to the Grand Rapids Airport and like a miracle my car was still sitting where I parked it. The highways back to my home were reported closed when I started out from the airport and just as I arrived at highway 131 it opened up and when I got to I-94 it had just opened and the same was true when I arrived at my Battle Creek roads. I was able to drive right to the corner of my street where I was able to park and walk down the road a few hundred yards to my doorway. I phoned the Amway hotel and was advised that they had not allowed anyone to leave the hotel as yet. That entire adventure all came unraveling out of me just because Jean had asked me a question about seeing a circus. Maybe I will watch that movie again tonight with popcorn.

Many years ago it used to tick me off when watching the Johnny Carson Show.  Ed McMahon, the M.C., would say “Now  H – e – r – e  ‘ s Johnny!” and the audience would go nuts, a screaming and cheering and a hollerin’ and Johnny would slowly strut around like a cock rooster and just bask away in that fantastic standing ovation.  It seemed so unfair for Johnny to be getting such an awesome ovation from the audience night after night when most people who work harder than Johnny Carson every day have never had a standing ovation and most never any such recognition in their whole lives.  

At sales meetings where I was making a presentation I would select someone from the audience to act as Ed and say, “Here’s Johnny!” and the audience would cheer but never quite loud enough. Then I would get that person’s name and something about his or her occupation and point out that the audience did not stand up and nobody hollered “Yoo ooo!” I’d ask him about his job and if he didn’t believe that he worked harder than Johnny Carson and asked  “Don’t you think what you do is more important than what Johnny Carson does?”  After all, just what does Johnny do?  He comes onstage, tells a few jokes, gets married every three or four years and that’s it.” 

I called my new assistant by his name, say “Charlie, I want you to represent everyone in your industry. And I am going to get you a screaming, hollering wild standing ovation right now that you will never forget.”  “I’d ask, Are you married, Charlie?”  If he said “Yes!” I would say, “Well your wife will find out about this and from now on when you walk through the door at night she will give you a standing ovation. And when you come into work tomorrow your fellow workers will give you  a standing ovation. Charlie, this is a life changing moment for you. You’ll walk out of here today singing with a great baritone voice, “FOR THIS IS MY MOMENT, I FEEL IT AROUND ME!”  

I’d ask the audience,”Are you all ready?” And the audience would holler “YES!”  

I’d crank that audience up a few more notches and explain that I wanted to hear a standing, screaming, mind boggling salute because Charlie was representing everyone in your entire industry.  Let’s hear it, let’s holler the roof right off this building,  Ladies and gentlemen here we go, and I yell out … “Heeeeeeerrrrrrrr’s Charlie!”  And that entire audience would jump up and hoot and holler and cheer like they have never cheered in their lives and I would egg them on and they would holler and cheer some more, applauding ’til their hands hurt and Charlie would stand there stunned.  I’d get the crowd quieted and seated then, and Charlie would start to leave but I would stop him and say,”Don’t go yet Charlie.  I have written a special poem for this occasion and I would like to read it to you.” 

Over the years I wrote poems for many, many such special occasions. Over sixty such poems. Later I would get letters from those in charge of such meetings. They would often say things like “I believe that everyone at that meeting left feeling better about themselves and their jobs.  A number of those poems were published in trade magazines of the industrys or trades involved. 

At Purdue University the Pest Control Association Members cheered, At Ball State University in Indiana the U.S. Navy Recruiters went wild cheering, At Ann Arbor, Michigan the Asphalt Road Builders who worked in 99 degree heat next to a several hundred degree asphalt cheered one another and I could hardly quiet them down to hear my tribute poem.  These responses had absolutely nothing to do with me and my performance. What it had to do with was them and their daily performance in sometimes totally unrecognized occupations. 

Look around you today.  Many of the people we all encounter every day haven’t even heard an Attaboy!  Not ever. Maybe it is time for us all to start “H e r e’ s Johnnying! somebody every day. 

References:

• ArtFettig.com