The kitchen door flew open with a smack. I bounded in, every watt of seventh grade enthusiasm burning bright. I couldn’t wait to tell mom my big news: I was signed up for the big annual talent show at school.
There was a catch: I had no demonstrable talent. Couldn’t dance. Didn’t have musical ability. Wasn’t athletic. What burned deep inside, though, was my 12-year old lifelong ambition of being a stand-up comedian.
Mom looked back at me with a veneer of loving support barely concealing her more seasoned sense of terror at what would happen when I stepped into the spotlight’s fire armed with nothing but jokes taken from the back of Boy’s Life.
“That’s terrific. What’s your gimmic?” she asked me. “Everybody’s gotta have a schtick, Charlie. What’s yours?”
Unbridled enthusiasm dragged me in a runaway gallop to my first lesson in marketing. Thankfully, the teacher was there. We worked for two weeks, amassing a five-minute set of jokes with a schtick I was born to wield.
Today is Barbara Lane’s 76th birthday. That schtick thing is just one of many lessons about business, marketing and life she’s taught me along the way. Everyone should be so blessed to have someone like her standing just off stage.
The night of the talent show, I strode into the spotlight and stole show. My schtick? What else? Jokes about my mom, the woman with “so many candles on her cake it looked like a prairie fire.”
Happy birthday, mom. I can still hear your applause above all the rest.
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