The better together speech, 1984

By Bill Pearse on March 16, 2025 • ( 0 )

The way the clouds pass across the sky and stretch like see-through gauze through my window. Stretching back to another time. Stumbling onto the stage and crossing it as a 14-year-old. Dropping my speech, the papers scattering across the floor, having to rearrange them at the podium. My hands shaking and my mouth dry. The sudden awareness of being on stage under bright light and everyone staring at me. Their first instinct was to laugh but then they caught themselves and now everyone is quiet. It’s just me and the microphone.

How is it I agreed to do this, to compete in a speech contest as a 14-year-old? Is it some need for attention, or like the all-cold showers I take that hurt at first but start to feel good after a while? Who does this and why.

The second round of competition for an oratorical contest, the Optimist Club. I won the first round and advanced to the zone level and now I’m going last on a long night of speeches. I must have looked like a young Woody Allen or Peter Sellers stumbling like that, fumbling my speech, papers fluttering to the floor. Now they are all waiting to see how I will respond, who is this young man.

The speech is about democracy and the importance of voting. I am 14 and have no business talking about this. I wrote some of the speech and the rest was developed by my dad and my speech coach, Rick Sharp.

Rick Sharp would be there in the audience and perhaps even seated in the same row as my mom and dad, my grandparents. My grand-dad would be wearing a jacket and tie with his gray hair combed back and his glasses. It is the Mack Trucks corporate headquarters and everything is on a much larger scale, adult-sized. Rows of large flags on either side of the auditorium; foreboding steps on either side of the stage. When you start to climb the steps everyone watches as you turn and approach the center.

I would be wearing a jacket and tie too. It’s 1984. We’ve been practicing the speech now all winter and it’s early spring. Rick Sharp is bearded with glasses and hair colored like mine, a bit messy and long. Why does this guy volunteer to help kids like me deliver speeches?

When I practice my speech Rick Sharp closes his eyes like he’s in a trance, he chews every word before swallowing. He is pure kindness and generosity. It is 1984 but he is wearing a denim suit and looks like 1975.

The speech would be typed but I have no recollection of typing it, this happened some 40 years ago. There is no copy of the speech and little of it I remember. The central image is that democracy is like a rope where different people act as the individual strands and when there is strain put on the rope the strands come together to hold the weight. It’s the Optimist Club so the vibe is we can do this people, we may be different but we’re all better together.

When I introduce the rope theme I use my hands to illustrate and perhaps lock them together in the showy manner you’d expect from a 14-year-old. But it works. It’s been a long night, maybe 10 pm on like a Wednesday. They announce me as the winner. I get called back onto the stage to shake some guy’s hand and claim my trophy to a round of healthy applause. This is maybe the best night of my young life. We even celebrate at a local restaurant, the Brass Rail, and they put us in a private room.

I lose the next round, I choke. The pressure of it all is just too much in my little head. But there is that night at the Mack Trucks when I won I can still see my mom and dad, my grandparents and Rick Sharp smiling at me from the audience. All the other faces are just drawn in or blank but theirs are still clear to me.

Whatever happened to that speech it doesn’t matter. Just one of many things that fall through the cracks and disappear. Some parts of our lives only exist in the mind. How to celebrate or amend and fix those things by taking them out. Then carefully putting them back.