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I still have the company. It is still what I build Why Toastmasters?

all my work through. My second wife was my connection to
I haven’t come up with a really good name Toastmasters. She’s just about has her DTM. She
except for Bend’s oldest working, stand-up comic. started a club in Wilmington, North Carolina.

I’m trying to see what’s going to happen with It’s a Zoom club. They have members from all
that. I may start this old man series that does over the country and it has actually expanded
little one-minute routines around cooking and memberships.
cleaning and doing all the things that a single After I moved to Bend, I needed a connection

person does when they separate from whatever to the community. And so Toastmasters became
has been holding them back. If you’ve never my connection. It was a way to meet people and
been on your own, you need training. You need get out there and do things. It worked. I thought it
little educational vignettes to give you hints on was a Chamber of Commerce club, but found out

how to survive on your own. I wasn’t on my own later that the Club had been started by Chamber
until I was 78 years old. members. That was the only connection.
It was a great experience to have my own
dinnerware and my own cooking utensils and So what inspired you to be a comic?

all of that stuff. It’s all about learning. And it goes Oh, well, our Toastmaster club had a little
on and on. Yeah, so I have a deep appreciation project just after I joined. One of the members
for learning—having been the only child of a said, “Hey, why don’t we get a group together and
school teacher. go do stand up?”, And we said, “Sure, why not?

VOICES! | NOVEMBER 2021 9