A little touch of Greece

Well, it had been too long since we had a program at the library, so I again made a suggestion to the Friends, and in fact offered myself up as a sacrifice. I would give a slideshow presentation on the two trips I made to Greece in the early 90s. Of course, the early 90s is now a long time ago, but as I said to the group when I gave my presentation (last night): Greece is eternal. It doesn't change all that much from decade to decade. The historical sites are still the same, the islands are the same, Athens is basically the same, the people are still the same.

Getting the slideshow made was a challenge. I had a bunch of slides, which one of our Board members, who is also the city's historian, and an invaluable source of information for the library, said he would burn to a CD for me. However, I didn't have slides for all the pictures I wanted to include; in some cases I had only prints. So Sam had to figure out how to do slides interspersed with the occasional print. But he did it. Now I had to figure out how to get the pictures into the laptop we have at the library, since I would be using the laptop, connected to our LCD projector, to show the slides. Fortunately, one of the local activists -- he's a never-still member of the Hallowell Area Board of Trade, was the guiding force behind the city obtaining a grant for a project to put a bunch of the library's old photos online (the Maine Community Heritage Project), and so much else besides -- offered to help me get the pictures into presentation mode.

We (I should say he) tried a couple of different things, but nothing worked reliably, and then we discovered that our little MacIntosh ibook did have PowerPoint already installed in it. The procedure for getting the pictures into PowerPoint was time-consuming and tedious (there were 51 photos), but Bob did the first few, hovered at my elbow while I did a few, and I was then able to take the computer home and finish inserting the pictures over the weekend. Mission accomplished.

But what to say? I knew I needed to plan that, if for no other reason than that discussion of 51 pictures needed to fit into an hour's time. But in typical Melody fashion I kept avoiding the task, until late Wednesday afternoon -- the day before the program -- when I sat down with the computer on my dining table, and began rehearsing what I was going to say for each picture. I was still at it at 11:30 that night (I did take time out to watch Human Target on the Fox channel. The hero has an unfortunate, whimpy voice, but my, is he good-looking.) One reason for how long it took was that I kept having to check my facts -- digging out all my Greek guidebooks (whenever I travel anywhere I find it all but impossible to avoid buying the color guidebook that is available for sale at virtually every tourist attrac-tion), riffling through the pages -- I know it's here somewhere -- checking some things online.

Sometimes I would be rattling along -- expounding to the pictures of my father, my paternal grandparents, and their parents, which adorn the wall over my dining table -- and I would realize I was just going to have to cut some of the information I was pouring out. There simply wasn't going to be enough time. And in some cases I realized I really should have pictures to support some of the things I was saying -- and I did have them, but not included in this presentation -- so I was just going to have to cut. It was just like writing! What to leave in, what to leave out.

I was very nervous about the program. As always there was the question, would enough people show up, though I was a little less concerned on that point than I usually am, since I've learned talks about foreign places are generally pretty good draws. But would I remember everything, the correct pronunciation for everything, would the machines work o.k. and blah, blah, blah. In other words, I had good old-fashioned stage fright, as I always do, as most of us do, when having to "perform." In the event there was a problem with the focus -- on about picture three it occurred to me that the pix were a little fuzzy, and I said, right out loud, "I wonder if we can improve the focus on these -- does anyone know how to do that?" And somebody in the audience did, and then the program went without a hitch, and the Greek food one of the Friends had brought as refreshments were a big hit, and everyone said it had been a great program, and several people expressed amazement that I'd been able to remember all that.

So, I put on a show, with a little help from my friends. And thank God it's over.