He got me. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to hide it, so I must have let down my guard the split second this photographer captured this moment. But now, I guess, the secret’s out…
I LOVE DICTIONARIES!
My wife was horrified when she first learned that I keep a dictionary by my bed.
Actually, she’s still horrified.
And not just because google can look up any word in tenths of a millisecond.
I guess she’s never experienced a true word definition emergency.
And, ok, maybe dictionaries are kind of 20th century.
But there’s still some magic in stumbling across an unfamiliar word,
And mumbling the alphabet to yourself as you scan an entire page of words that are spelled almost exactly the same,
And then feeling enlightenment dawn as you read the definition in the context of the phrase that just seconds ago made no sense at all.
So when I learned that my Rotary Club gives a brand new dictionary to every third grader in Needham,
I just had to get involved.
I just had to.
This is a picture of me (courtesy Marty Lindemann) putting stickers on those dictionaries,
Anticipating my delight,
And the delight on those third grade faces,
As they look up their very first words,
In their very own dictionary,
With their very own name on a sticker on the very first page.
So the question for you (and your Elevator Pitch) is:
What makes you this embarrassingly giddy?
What about what you do puts this big a smile on your face?
Share it in the comments below, (especially if it’s dictionaries), and for goodness sake,
Share that smile, the one that’s on your face right now, the next time you give your Elevator Pitch!