Just Like My (Little) Brother
The 110th Bailey Oratorical was this Tuesday and none of the speeches disappointed. But that isn’t exactly what I wanted to write about. As some may know I helped in the setup for the Bailey. As secretary for the Communication Club, we were tasked with certain duties for the Bailey. Some of these included; ordering the food and beverages, getting the prizes that would be raffled off during the Bailey, and handing out the fliers and raffle tickets before people entered the event.
When I first heard about this, I thought about it for a second and thought, “Hey this would look great on my resume,” I mean being part of the 110 year legacy of the Bailey Oratorical, who wouldn’t want that as part of their resumé. I mean even as a theatre technician this is great stuff even if I did the smallest of jobs, put it together and you helped make something big happen.
As a woke up that day my focus was pretty clear. I would treat it like I do for any theatre or cultural event production. I got up, went to classes, then went back and got ready for the show. As I was getting ready, something hit me. I was changing into my nice clothes and my brother texted in the family group chat about something he saw about wrestling that day. I texted back right away how cool that sounded and would talk about it later but have to get ready for the Bailey. After I finished sending the text something hit me. My brother and I have switched roles for the day.
Let me explain, My brother and I are two of the most different individuals you will ever meet. Except for sports, music, and wrestling we share nothing in common. But that doesn’t stop us from getting along (even though we do have our brotherly disputes). He didn’t go to college, as I have chosen. He wanted to go straight to the workforce because he learned everything he needed in the ASM Program back home. And I fully supported this because he was lightyears ahead of me. I didn't even know what I wanted to do with my life senior year of high school but he found something like that. So it was very different for me and him and I realized that again on that day.
But back to that day, in my head, I saw our roles switch and I was proud. I got dressed for the event and went to the Bailey to help set up everything for this show. I helped bring the food and beverages to the event. I helped set up the passing of the fliers and raffle tickets and then helped give out the prizes for the raffle. After that was cleanup and during that, I just thought that I hope I did my little brother proudly. He puts everything into events like this and if one thing goes wrong he puts it on him to get it right or it sticks with him until the end of the day, and I respect the hell out of that because that is how I am with the theatre. So in some ways, my brother and I are the same but we are different people. But after this Bailey I have a new respect for what he does and hope we both get what we want out of these roads we are traveling down.
