Three Surprises

Last Thursday night my wife and I attended a jazz performance at the White House. We were surprised to be there. We’d never been invited to an evening event before -- we figured the invitation was a mistake -- so we quickly said ‘yes.’ Over the course of the evening I was surprised two more times.

Entering the East Room of the White House, we sat at a small table near the drum set. Our daughter plays the drums, so we’re always looking for pointers. As the performers came in I pulled back from the table and turned my chair to face the stage, almost running into someone doing the same thing at the next table. Second surprise, it was the President of the United States.

“Mr. Peacock!” he exclaimed.

My response: “Hey . . . Mr. President . . . wow . . . good . . . ah . . . yeah . . . you.”

Translation: “Hey, Mr. President, I’m an idiot!”

The performance quickly started and after several songs by Denise Thimes the President thanked everyone and headed off to bed and then Africa. My wife and I had no such trip planned, so we lingered.

Third surprise: Herman Burney, Jr.  Herman backed up Ms. Thimes on the bass and we got to chatting with him.  Herman teaches music part-time. We have another daughter who plays bass guitar. “I tell kids there are three times you play music: practicing by yourself, rehearsing with a group, and then performing for an audience. If you can master practicing on your own, then you don’t have to worry about the other two times. They will fall right into place.”

I realize I’ve seen this with my own kids. They prefer practicing with their friends but those practices go much better when they come prepared, with their own house already in order. That allows them to concentrate on melding together as a group.

Like my kids preparing to perform a concert, EPA needs to prepare to perform as well. The Agency recently proposed our FY2009 budget. An important part of our request is $56 million to improve our ability to respond to disasters. For instance, we want to provide emergency preparedness training for 700 more EPA staff. That’s a lot of training, but we need it.

EPA responded extremely well to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Inspector General noted, “EPA’s ability to operate under catastrophic conditions was commendable.” Former Senator Jeffords said, “We’ve heard so much about what went wrong in Katrina’s aftermath, and this is one example of what went right.”

I personally know a lot of our success happened through sheer brute force and willpower. It was harder than it should have been. It particularly took a toll on those employees who were trained responders. Taking the lessons we learned to heart we are better prepared for an emergency now than we were in 2005.

Our new goal is to be ready and able to respond to five simultaneous emergencies. We’ve made progress, but we’re not there yet, hence the budget request. If we can get our own house in order, when the next disaster(s) happen(s), we can concentrate more quickly on working and melding with our response partners. We’ll be ready to perform.

I’ve also learned a lesson. I’ve started rehearsing what I would say if I ever find myself next to the President again at a White House party. Every time I sit down at a meal now I turn to whoever is at my left and say “Mr. President, how kind of you to have invited us.” It's good practice, even if I did kind of spook a guy at Taco Bell yesterday.

Comments

[Mario Varela]

Mr. Peacock, I enjoy your blog, it has a real down-to-earth and honest feel, thank you! In particular, I really enjoyed this one issue, about "Three Surprises", especially because I am a drummer myself in a rock band with a few of my "40-something" friends (as a hobby that is - in real life I am an environmental, health & safety professional working in the Corporate world). Anyway, I related to your story because I also do the same you do; whenever I see a band playing live, I sit or stand as close as I can to the drummer so I can learn a few tips, almost like on-the-job/hands-on training, huh? :) (Only that the learning is for myself since my kids haven't really picked up on the drums). It is very cool that your daughters play drums and bass, there's not that many females that do, which makes it that more uncommon and special. Congratulations!

Thank you for sharing your personal and professional stories in working at EPA. Good job!

Mario

[Marcus]

Thanks for your note Mario. As my kids start doing more gigs I suspect they will creep into future entries. Rock on!