I have known George Boozer all my life. As a child, I peddled both groceries and newspapers to his house. In those days, Mack's Cash & Carry grocery store actually delivered groceries. Now you are lucky if you can get help lugging them out to the car.

I also delivered the now defunct Columbia Record to the Boozer household. George was a character. The words "arts" and "George Boozer" were synonymous. He was the very definition of the arts in the quaint little community of Lexington, SC.

George directed me in several plays that were hosted by the Lexington County Arts Association. He tried to talk me into singing the Bing Crosby rendition of White Christmas during one of his reviews. I am a sucker for most any gig, but I couldn't see reducing myself to such a low level in the eyes of my friends and neighbors, so Mickey Perrin got the appearance. As a result, neither one of us made it to Broadway, but that's another story.

My most memorable play in which George directed was one called "Submerged," a drama about a submarine that had gone down (unintentionally). All of the members of the crew slowly died one by one. Some of the acting on the stage that week was a precursor of the play's end result.

Let's face it; we were a bunch of local nobodies that were trying to bring the arts to the town of Lexington, not exactly a hotbed of acting talent. But George never made you feel that way. Don't get me wrong, he didn't blow a lot of smoke at you. He'd get in your face in his loving sort of way and you did a better job of acting because of it.

I never fashioned myself as an actor, although I have received paid acting gigs since leaving Lexington, thanks in large part to the tips that George gave me early on.

Those same tips, while intended for the stage, have served me well as a professional speaker. I recall challenging George on one of the lines in "Submerged." In my own ignorance, I suggested that if a line were repeated, it would have greater significance. George's response was typically direct and loving: "If you do it right the first time, you won't have to repeat it." What great advice. But then, that's what directors do; they direct.

George never knew it but he probably had as much of an impact on my speaking career as any booking agent or speaking coach I've had over the years. He hired me as a speaker to address an association of which he was a part in the late seventies and again in the eighties.

George Boozer was a class act. He encouraged me to pursue an acting career. I never took his advice in part because I didn't share his enthusiasm about my thespian abilities and in part because I simply wanted to be a professional speaker and writer, not an actor. Now I find that there ain't a lot of difference between them.

I have done some professional acting now that I live in the shadow of Disney, and I have even gotten paid for it. I played the part of the Governor in a made-for-Broadway play titled "Lizzie," a story about the infamous Lizzie Borden, who turned her father and step-mother into hamburger meat with her ax.

As the Governor, I defended her in court and I actually get her off of the terrible charges she had levied against her. While the play was a musical, after hearing a couple of bars of my singing, the directors asked me if I had gotten lost in the hall. "No, I know I can't sing," I responded. "Just wanted a second opinion."

"Seriously," they asked me, "Why are you here?"

"My Priest (who has done some acting) talked me into coming," I responded. "He thinks you can find a part for me."

"Not singing," they quickly pointed out. "Can you act? Let's hear something, a quote, a story… anything. Anybody who sings as badly as you do has to at least possess some talent in another area."

So I proceeded to recite a quote from the late, great Vince Lombardi as he addressed his team at halftime of a Super Bowl. When I was done, both directors were in tears. "You can be the Governor," they said enthusiastically.

Thanks to George Boozer I scratched off another of the 500 things I put on my goals list I wrote at the age of 11.

I got paid a whopping $100 for a week's work. I was born at night, but not last night. I'm never working that hard again for a lousy hundred bucks.