We Stayed

Well, my niece attended her second public speaking competition yesterday. My brother and sister-in-law were there and so was niece #2. They arrived early to get their little speaker registered. They managed to get seats near the front. My sister and her boyfriend met me there and they saved me a seat in their row near the back of the room.

The competition started at noon. Again, there were competitions in each of the divisions -- primary, junior, intermediate and senior. There were about six or seven children in each category except the senior category which featured only two speakers. The "show" started with the primary division. All but two of the speakers were reciting stories from books they had read. We found out later that the kids in the primary competition could memorize a book OR write and deliver their own speech. Every one of the books memorized by the contestants was written by children's author Robert Munsch.

My niece placed third. Second place went to a little girl who memorized and delivered a French version of Robert Munsch's book, "Up, Up, Down." First place went to a lively speaker who delivered a horror story about school. I think she said it was called the Teacher from the Black Lagoon. I looked it up on the Internet. It's a book written by Mike Thaler. Within just a few seconds, I was hooked. I realize now that I probably wouldn't enjoy the book nearly as much as I enjoyed listening to this little girl tell the story. She was awesome. She deserved first prize. Even my niece said to me, "Yeah, she was good." It's much easier losing to someone so deserving. My niece was quite gracious about it.

After the primary competition was over, my brother and his family left. As he walked past us where we sat in the back he turned and said, "Are you staying?" I said, "Sure. What the heck else are we going to do on a Sunday? This is like the closest thing I get to a night out." My sister and her boyfriend agreed. We stayed.

The junior competition was a wash. Too dramatic, too boring, too broad a topic (not enough depth) or too much detail, these kids tanked. Peer pressure, Guinness Book of World Records, Endangered Species (at least 4 of them), Fears & Phobias, Traditions and Camping Trips. All written and delivered by kids aged 9-12. How could they wow us? After all, we had just sat through a series of Robert Munsch stories. They didn't have a chance. My sister's boyfriend thought that the primary speakers blew away the junior division. (He gloated somewhat when the judges admitted to having a difficult time judging the elementary speakers...he insisted it was because they were all below average.) Fears & Phobias took first, Traditions (making maple syrup) took second place, and another little girl took third but I can't for the life of me remember the topic of her speech.

The trophies and cheques were handed out and most of the contestants and their families left the building. We stayed. I realized that we were the only adults in the room who were still there and not related to any of the speakers or members of that branch of the Canadian Legion. Hmmm.

The intermediate division was an interesting competition. Body image, Bullying, Auditioning, The Teenage Brain, My Hero is my Grandfather, Terry Fox and Beauty were the topics. All of the speakers in this category were young ladies. Third place went to Auditioning who ended her speech by singing part of a song from the Sound of Music -- different. Second place went to a girl who compared bullying to rain in a well-sustained, 5-minute metaphor -- also different. First place went to the girl discussing Beauty. She was great. Her speech was colourful, humorous, and endearing. She deserved the win. I'm sure she'll go very far in the next few competitions.

Nobody left the building, because there were only two speakers left. The competition coordinator was afraid to give us a break and risk having the last two speakers "talk to themselves." We would have stayed.

The first speaker talked about the New Madrid fault line and the earthquake it caused in 1811. (My sister and her boyfriend were quite interested, but that's to be expected. They are currently reading Apocalypse 2012 and are quite fascinated by all manner of theories regarding the end of the earth.) The second speaker talked about the human heart. She used clever wordplay to dress up the topic and she delivered the speech with energy and enthusiasm. She won.

All in all, it was worth spending three hours on a cold winter day inside listening to children talk about things they find interesting and important. So maybe somebody wrote down our license plates when we drove away after the competition. So what! We came, we sat, we listened.

We stayed.