TALES OF A FOURTH GENERATION TEXTILE EXECUTIVE: LET THE JOURNEY BEGIN
As promised, I am making all efforts to blog it up a little more consistently. So, here I am sitting in seat 24c on the way to Denver for a layover and ultimately to a place that I haven’t been to in awhile. Let me give you some hints….Reggie, Michael, Jesse, Kendall, Andrew, Latoya and Jermaine to name a few. If you haven’t figured it out yet, all these people have the last name Jackson. I particularly like Kendall, the wine guy, as I imagine, or hope, that you quilters enjoy a nice glass of wine or two or twelve while working your magic on the sewing machine. I am not condoning quilting and drinking, but I am not speaking against it either. Just be smart.
Anyhow, so if you haven’t figured it out yet, I am headed to the beautiful Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Why you might ask? As I often do, I received an email request for a fabric donation for what is to be the Jackson Hole Quilt Festival. I emailed the person in charge and long story short I agreed to sponsor the event on behalf of Studioe and Henry Glass (not sure if I mentioned this, but Henry Glass Fabrics is under the JAFTEX umbrella too). I got to talking with the woman in charge, and before I knew it, I somehow volunteered to be the guest speaker at the Friday night social. I guess I was just in a good mood that day.
Allow me to digress. Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking. This is a phobia of mine and like my previous blog where I was nervous about dressing up as a woman, once again, I need my therapist to increase my Xanax dosage. This phobia started in law school after enduring some serious grilling during a trial that I wasn’t well prepared for. The fear is improving slowly though as my job and life do require me to publicly speak more frequently than most and much more frequently than I like. That being said, the best way to get over the fear of public speaking is to public speak. So I am going to man up and enlighten the social attendees about the fabric industry and anything they want to know about it, and me. Since I hated law school so much, I thought I would structure the social like a law class…..spite is a beautiful thing. That is, not with a boring preplanned lecture, but rather, I am almost totally unprepared and will see the direction that the crowd wants to go in based on their questions. Wish me luck as this should be interesting. Considering the glossophobia, I am not sure how this will work out, but I will be certain to let you know upon my return….if I make it.
Back to the subject at hand, I am very excited about this trip as I will have some free time to see the sights. The problem is that since our government is so dysfunctional that the parks will be closed and I will probably miss out on some beautiful sightseeing, hiking and fishing. How unlucky! I will make the best of it though as I am a creative guy.
In any case, the plane is going to land soon and the second leg of my trip will begin. I can’t wait to report back to you, my dear blog followers. Stay tuned. In the meantime, I wish you happy quilting and hope you are praying for my survival of the social….1 hour and 100 people…yikes.
Yours truly,
SMF