Tonight I bought a kilo of millet and searched on YouTube about its benefits and how to prepare it. Somehow the 6-minute Vimeo led me to the Focus on the Family channel. I immediately recognized the voice of the man being interviewed and even the aged version of his familiar face.
I met Dr. Kevin Leman, the Christian psychologist who wrote The Birth Order Book, shortly after it came out and while he was on deadline with his publishers for his next book. I stood guarding the black limousine so that it and the driver would not be shooed away by security from the loading zone at the Winnipeg Airport arrivals. My client, the backer of The Winnipeg Parents Show which I was the publicist, insisted on going alone to welcome him and sweep him off to the Sheraton hotel.
He brushed right past me, undetected, as well as my client who was on the lookout for the man on his book’s dust jacket. We both saw the book, but I read it in preparation for Dr. Leman’s trip from the USA and his talk. It was my job to promote the show he was paid to be at and to escort him to the media interviews I had set up for him. The aim was to expose him to our shared audience to boost paid attendance at the event and to help others learn of his book and life’s work on birth order in a family, or community setting.
A quick lesson – authors and celebrities rarely look in person like their promotional photos. Also, if in the welcoming party, carry a large sign with the guest’s name to waive because most do not check baggage so you don’t get a 2nd chance loitering around the carousel to find them.
When we caught up with Dr. Leman, he had already checked into the hotel room we reserved in his name. He was a bit bashful in greeting me and the trade show’s backer as he was also already in ‘comfort clothing mode’ and expecting our knock at the door to be room service with the club sammich and fries he had ordered.
Awkward but we had things to discuss so the investor left me with the good Dr. to brief him. He was in a hurry to get back to writing the chapters in progress at the desk, and of course, to consume his late supper.
“You must be a firstborn since you look like you are straight out of Redbook,” he said. He was referring to my boxy-cut black cotton Escada jacket when I could still fit into that line’s silhouette. And it being decades before the poorly worn leggings were in style, I had custom-tailored tapered black pants and suitable black shoes. No, I said. I am not the firstborn in my family, to which he said well there must be 5 years or more between you and the next oldest then.
Always a loophole to every theory.
It was an interesting assignment. It was topped a few days later with the arrival of the wonderfully warm nun turned family counselling psychologist, the casual and charming elfin like outdoorsy guru from Colorado, but all were overshadowed by the gentle giant and legend, Dr. Benjamin Spock himself.
Not a bad week for the alleged comedian in the family, the last born, baby of the bunch, yours truly in whom they all entrusted their time and reputations.
Dr. Leman, a last born, has been married for ’56 years in a row’ as he says, to his wife, a first-born and can be heard as he is today in this clip. I agree with him that no matter your age, you are still in your early form and experience crafted in your standing in the family, most influenced by those above you in birth order.
The clip linked above is from the YouTube channel: Focus on the Family and is entitled: How Your Birth Order Shapes Your Marriage (Best of 2024)
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