Archive for July, 2006

Doctors-old and new

The variations in today’s viruses are no more radical than the changes that have taken place among medicine men. From the obstetrician who spanks each new-born bottom to the pathologist who performs the post-mortem the new fashioned physician is in complete contrast to the old-time doctor with his little black bag and baggy britches.

Those overworked old-time men of medicine are as extinct as their horse-drawn carriages. Their shoes are filled by men who count on X-ray and antibiotic cures rather than bedside vigils. Even their “bedside manner” has given way to the prevalent “clinic call.” The stuffy austerity of those old time fellows has been mellowed by a country club demeanor. Although some patients take digs at their doctors for leading easier lives, today’s practicing physician saves more lives than the best known specialist of 25 years back and one modern man now can do what ten couldn’t accomplish 30 years ago.

Keywords: Public Speaking, Public Speakers, Public Speaking Tips, Public Seminar Speaking

Credit men

Credit men are looked upon as cold, calculating automatons, on a par with morticians-men who do a necessary job. What a governor is to an engine, credit men are to industry. Each department is geared to go, but this governor, this credit executive’s caution, spells the difference between a plant with a profit and one wherein only the wheels are spinning.

Credit men are well aware that many a man is poor today because his credit was good yesterday; he drives a mortgaged car, travelling a bond-financed highway, on credit card gas. They also are “on” to people who try to keep the wolf from the door by frequently changing their addresses.

Credit, like love, is a many-splendored thing. A man admiring his new suit bragged to his friend: “The wool is from Australia, the buttons from California; the thread came from Japan, and the lining from New York.” His friend wondered what was so wonderful about all that, and he replied: “Why, isn’t it wonderful that so many people can make a living from a suit I haven’t paid for?”

Trading on tic

No nation in history was ever sitting as pretty as we’ve been for nearly two decades; anything we want, we go out and buy on credit. Thus we have no economic problems- except that some day we may have to pay. Everyone puts out credit cards; only the government collects cash. Time was when our tastes had to be in harmony with our income. Now we operate on a dollar down and a dollar a week, and we all grow old together.

Everybody owes everything to his charge account, yet bankers refuse to take credit cards as collateral. Peoples’ wallets are bulging with credit cards but not with money; they buy on the lay awake plan. By trading on tic they look as though they’re getting up in the world when what they’re really doing is making only a down payment.

Keywords: Public Speaking, Public Speakers, Public Speaking Tips, Public Seminar Speaking

Chiropodists

Nothing promotes a corny joke more spontaneously than mention of a foot doctor, despite the fact that they now are a very different breed from the old unlicensed corn-and-callous men.

Long ago Doc Cornplaster became the best heeled man in his old home town by healing heels and lifting meta-tarsals. Using pads on bunions and tape over toenails, the loveable fraud endeared himself to his townfolks. By rubbing cool linament on a hot foot he’d send a grouch home happy. His cronies credited the old sole saver with turning a sour spinster into a sexsational sister merely by treating her toes. Today’s chiropodists get to the bottom of things clear down to flat feet and fallen arches. A steady frame needs a firm foundation, and a firm foundation begins with a comfortable footing.

In order to practice professionally, today’s chiropodists are required to complete a four-year college course and pass a rigid exam. Once these requirements are satisfied and local license fees paid, they are free to administer all medical or surgical foot treatment with the exception of amputation. Thus, by training and by statute these specialists have attained professional stature, though, as our Speaker will prove, that’s only the beginning.

Contractor

Diplomats have been defined as people who think twice and then don’t say anything. Our speaker isn’t like that; he doesn’t run his business silently. As a contractor he is quick to make estimates yet when he was asked why he wouldn’t guess a woman’s age, he said that he really didn’t know, but if he saw her on the street he’d whistle first and estimate later!

Don’t get the impression that our speaker isn’t a diplomat; he has a diplomat’s talent for giving a hand without a handout. So, how about a big hand for our friend, Mr. .

Keywords: Public Speaking, Public Speakers, Public Speaking Tips, Public Seminar Speaking

Bookshop keepers

In the last few years book sales have suffered strong competition due to the popularity of movies, radio and TV. Shopkeepers consider these diversions as just another cycle on the theory that printed words live beyond sights and sounds. Customers asking for the current “breast” sellers among pulp publications are apt to be reminded that discriminating readers choose books in presentable binders.

The people who sell books are too devoted to their wares to reach for a hard-backed novel when the kitchen table needs levelling, or to use a bit of literature for a weighty weapon in domestic warfare. Despite any troubled waters these book-sellers look upon their voluminous cargoes as the outstanding products of men’s minds. They classify best-sellers as how-to-do this or that material; helpful hints for artisans; and first-aid by authors of cracked-heart copy. Anecdotes about famous folks continue in popularity and of course there’s always a demand for the book-of-the-minute with an undressed girl on the cover.

Good salesmanship is the “push” that gets any book off to a good start but sales always are spurred when a book is banned in Boston. It’s human nature for readers to want to see what the book burning was all about.
Our speaker is ready to tell us of the smoldering ashes left by a few of these fires.

Canners

The old slogan, “Eat what you can, and what you can’t eat-can,” dates back to the smell of chili sauce simmering and jelly pots bubbling on the old wood burning store. Modern canners and their tidy tins turned these fragrant memories into things of the faded past, and they’ve built up a five billion dollar food processing business.

Canners process the product of our annual struggle against Mother Nature and her obstreperous offspring . . . wind, floods, drought and their cousin, discouragement. The fruits of this contest make money for the canners unless high produce prices or consumer complaints push their profits down to such a miserable margin that it almost crushes their cans!

Keywords: Public Speaking, Public Speakers, Public Speaking Tips, Public Seminar Speaking

Aviator

Our speaker today watched aviation grow from infancy. Less than sixty summers ago our multi-billion dollar air transport business began when two bicycle mechanics built a flimsy contraption of wire, sticks and cloth. Instead of breaking their necks on the dunes of Kitty Hawk, Wilbur and Orville Wright broke the spell that bound men to the ground. They established the law of aero-dynamics and altered the ways of the world.

Air travel has collapsed time to the point where you can now breakfast in New York and reach Los Angeles only to find that nobody’s up. Since distance has been dissolved, more passengers are flying to and from the States than are carried by steamships, and domestic air traffic greatly exceeds railroad travel.

Going by air has become so safe that insurance companies are “automatically” willing to bet twenty-five thousand to one that you’ll arrive ship shape. Twelve million quarters poured into self-service slot machines means that underwriters annually stake some $75,000,000 on the safety of air travel.
And for a final word, if air travel wasn’t safe, would air lines be promoting a “fly now, pay later” plan? Our speaker wants to tell us more about that convenient way to get around.

Bankers

The average banker has lost much of the loftiness his kind adopted in yesteryears-maybe because bankers were the first to go on the dole during the depression. The Scrooges gave way to more friendly fellows who are now men as human as the butcher, the bakers, and the makers of legal light. Depositors in today’s busy banks, with their drive-in windows and air-conditioned comfort, enjoy the friendly attitude of the bank’s personnel toward the man in the street.

Yet the banker remains a realist because it’s hard to be funny about money. It’s mostly your money he deals with, and it’s his responsibility to lend it wisely. Naturally bankers don’t appeal to the poverty stricken because promoting thrift among the poor is like advising a starving man to eat less. They look instead toward the fellow who works so hard at making money that he dumps the hardships of hanging on to it, on the Savings Banks.

The U.S. does the biggest volume of banking in the world; in fact, the Government itself constantly breaks into commercial banking. Yet it has only one Vice President in contrast to the many which my own bank employs. Their job is to discourage you from seeing the president. Also my bank has a portrait of its president with his hand in his own pocket: I’m told that he’s heart and soul a banker. He won’t lend a cent unless you can prove that you don’t really need it!

Keywords: Public Speaking, Public Speakers, Public Speaking Tips, Public Seminar Speaking