Guest speaker

I recently wrote an article about business closures on the South Shore, and one of the adjunct professors at Lake Tahoe Community College read it. He sent me an e-mail to ask if I could speak to his small business class. Normally when I write an article I usually hear from all the people who hated it, and this was the first time anyone asked me to speak at a class.

My gut feeling was to say no just because I'm not a big fan of public speaking. But then I thought that wasn't a very good reason to turn this instructor down, so I said yes.

As soon as I drove up to the college, I had a mini panic flash. What the hell am I going to talk about? When I walked into the room, my fear wasn't relieved either because the old city mayor was siting in the back row (she's a frequent contributor to the Letters to the Editor). It was also weird to see my article projected on the screen in the front of the classroom.

All in in all it was good experience, and I think I sounded like I knew what I was talking about — but I did feel odd being a guest speaker in a class where most of the students were as old as my parents.

But no one asked me how old I was, so that was a bonus.