The "It Was Snoring Versus Clapping In Training Program" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a story in my Sunday News titled "It Was Snoring Versus Clapping in Training Program.  Story began with....I was working for Communities In Schools (CIS), a national organization whose mission is to empower students to staying in school and achieve in life.  In 1977, CIS founder Bill Milliken came up with the idea of bringing community resources into public schools.  "It's not programs that are transforming young people's loves, it's relationships,"  Milliken said.  "A great program simply creates the environment for healthy relationships to form between adults and children.  Young people thrive when adults care about them on a one-to-one level and when they also have a sense of belonging to a caring community."  In the 1980s, I was part of a team of Communities in Schools trainers, and our role was to help create new programs and to help grow existing programs.  One of the ways we did this was through what we called Multi-Track Trainings.  During a training, we would bring several hundred people together with 15 to 20 trainers and conduct sessions on how to start and run a CIS program, how to create a strategic plan, etc.  We were doing a training in Monterey, California, and trainers had to room together.  Charles and Henry were in the same room.  The first night together, Henry was loudly snoring and woke up Charles.  Charles said, "Henry, Henry, Henry," each time a little louder, trying to wake up Henry so he would stop snoring.  But this didn't work; Henry continued to sleep and snore.  Now, this took place during the time when The Clapper (a sound-activated electrical switch whose tagline was "Clap on, clap off") was very popular, so Charles decided to clap his hands as if he was activating a Clapper; clap, clap.....clap, clap.  Henry looked up, rolled over and stopped snoring.  A few hours later, Henry started  snoring again and Charles again yelled, "Henry, Henry, Henry."  Again, nothing.  Charles tried The Clapper again: clap, clap .... clap, clap....clap, clap.  Henry looked up, rolled over and stopped snoring.  This happened several times throughout the night.  In the morning, Charles said to Henry, "You've got a problem, and we have to do something about it."  Henry responded , "Well now that you bring it up, you have some crazy habits yourself, Dude.  I was not going to say anything, but I woke up several times over the course of the night to see you sitting straight up in your bed clapping as loud as you could."  Henry was dead serious. The author of this story was Marty Thomas-Brummé.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.