Hello Dad,

Even though it will not have been two years since you passed away for another few weeks, I tend to think about you more about you as the date draws closer. Last night was a glaring example of that. I had joined Ann in going to a Toastmasters meeting in Naugatuck intending only to be a spectator for the entire one hour meeting but I was caught by surprise right near the end. Toastmasters is a group in which members learn leadership skills by organizing and conducting meetings as well as completing projects.

I had been to most of the previous meetings and what I noticed each time is that one or two, sometimes three members had given speeches on various subjects running five to six minutes Well, last night there were a couple of people who had planned speeches for this meeting, including Ann, who like always did a great job with her presentation. After the scheduled speeches were done the meetings moved on until a couple more people( INCLUDING ME) were asked to come up and speak about different subjects, basically, on a whim.

You could imagine the surprised look I had on my face when I heard my name called because I had never intended to take part in what Ann and the other members were doing, dad. OK, so the question asked by the meetings leader that I needed to speak about was this: if I could teach something, what would I teach? Well dad, I thought of you and of the blogs that I enjoy writing so much right here and that a huge reason was because of your constant encouragement and of how you used to read them all. Therefore, I said that I would have liked to teach grade-school kids how to write properly. I didn’t pick out a specific journalistic field, but I talked about how any child could use solid writing skills and of how much that would help them down the road. I know that mom and you were watching. It wasn’t long at all, but, for once I actually felt pretty comfortable in front of a group, albeit very small, of people and I must give you a great deal of credit of for that. Thank you Dad!! Love, Dan