Help me with my speech for my dad's 80th birthday

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve made a fair number (I mean, the normal number?) of speeches in my time and done fine, okay? I’ve even spoken on the State House steps with a sign language interpreter and all, 'cause I’m just that important. But this birthday thing… I dunno, it has me nervous. My dad is turning 80, and what’s weighing on me is that you go to funerals and everybody says all these nice things about people once they’re dead, but those people aren’t there to hear it! So I want to say all those things, but I don’t want to cry or make anybody else cry or get maudlin or anything. Plus, those of you who have kindly been following my family’s shitty story recently know that parenting has recently gotten damned heavy for my dad, and I want to let him know that he did a damned fine job with me, if nobody else.

So, we’re doing this huge birthday party - I think we may have 90. Freaking. Guests. Confirmed! Nobody said no! We had to move it to another venue! And hire a caterer! So that’s a tribute to my dad in and of itself. One of his friends was going to make a speech, and he asked me for some anecdotes he could tell. As I was thinking about it, I realized, hey, I want to make my own damned speech. And I got all excited about it, you know? But it’s coming down to the wire (the party’s Saturday) and I don’t know what to say.

I mean, when I was thinking about it I couldn’t sleep for ideas, but I didn’t write them down! So I wanted to ask for advice on tone and length. I want to say important stuff, but I don’t want to drag anybody down, you know? So… how is this best done?

2

I don’t know what the done thing is, but I will tell you what I did for my very beloved Grandaddy’s 80th - disclaimer is that I did the speech to my webcam, saved the file and it was played at the party because I live overseas.

I picked an item - in this case, his clean white hanky - something that I associate with him - and I talked about that. I had one with me. I opened the speech by thanking everybody for turning up, and apologising for not being there, and then I said that I knew they thought I was going to talk about T-Tom (my Grandaddy), but instead, I was going to talk about this - and I showed the hanky to the camera.

And then I talked about how I could always count on my Grandaddy, and how he and his clean white hanky were always there for me, and how, magician like, he always seemed to have an endless supply of them - when I was six and skinned my knee, Grandaddy hauled out the hanky and dried my tears and stopped the bleeding, and how when I was 8 and decided to go camping in the back yard, he gave me his hanky to use to make a bundle to tie to a stick, and how when I was 16 and I had too much makeup and too much attitude, he hauled out the clean white hanky and ordered me to go scrub my face off with it, and later that same night he wordlessly handed it to me again when I was on the front porch bawling cause some boy hurt my feelings. Then he told me to get my butt in the house. :smiley:

I talked about the hanky when my great-great aunt (who did most of the raising of me) died when I was 21, how he handed it to me then put his arms around me to keep my knees from buckling when they closed that casket, despite his own grief.

I talked about me hearing him blow his own nose on one, the night I told him my son was born, and that’d I’d named the boy for him. And how we shared one at the boy’s christening, each of us drying our eyes in turn.

I was using my prop a bit for real by that time.

I said the hanky was the first thing that jumped in my head whenever I thought of him, that it smelled of his aftershave, and it used to smell like pipe tobacco. How it was the symbol of him taking care of me, and the symbol of his love for me.

And then, to lighten it all up, I talked about how he’s an eccentric, grumpy old guy, but that I loved him and he’d done all right with me, and that all that he’d done with me I would do with my son, including teaching my son to always have a clean white hanky, just like his old grumpy grandaddy. I said that everybody in life needed somebody who loved just them, best of all, and that person for me was my Grandaddy. Then I said, “I love you, old man.” And used that hanky to dry my eyes and shut the tape off.

I talked for about 15 minutes, I think? I’m not home, so I can’t check the tape and see the time.

I’m told it went over well. :slight_smile: But Grandaddy is my favorite person, which is good cause I’m not sure he really likes anybody else. I don’t know what your dad’s like so I don’t know if this would work for you, but for me it helped to take the focus off talking about him directly, cause I’d have been a sobbing mess by the end of it.

3

Love the use of the hanky. Really great, creative gimmick for a speech like this.

Were I doing it, I’d probably talk about history, and the changes your grandfather has seen. I’m guessing he was born during the Depression, saw WWII, might have served in Korea, saw Vietnam, the moon landing, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, Watergate, etc. Maybe collect an anecdote somewhat loosely related to each event–where he was living/working, what else was going on in his life.

4

Okay, is this a bad idea? I’ve always been struck by how my dad is like me, i.e., an introvert who really is not energized by being around other people, but yet very successful and popular and well-liked in such a way that you’d never know it if you didn’t know him well. When I read How to Win Friends and Influence People several years ago, I was really struck by how many of Dale Carnegie’s principles my dad seemed to embody, not because he learned it from a book but because he’s a naturally kind and compassionate person. I thought maybe I could talk about these, specifically:

Become genuinely interested in other people
Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely
Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language
Begin with praise and honest appreciation
Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to

And talk a bit about my dad and what a great guy he is in that framework. It’s a popular book that a lot of people have read - is that too tortured?

5

No, it’s a good hook to hang your speech on - go for it. Just make it ‘real’, for want of a better word - I’d talk about specific incidents that illustrate each - funny, sappy, sweet or whatever.

ETA: If you do this maybe give him a copy of the book with a dedication in front as a gift? That’d be really neat.