SCHOOL DAYS: MUSIC, PLAYS, AND PERFORMANCES

Photos From LFE Costume Contest 1978

Taken by Mr. Dotson

THEN:


  One of my favorite things about school was music class. The elementary schools in my country were very fortunate in that we had a very passionate and fairly patient music teacher named Mrs. Deel, but we did have to share her and life would have been even better if we'd had much more time with her, studying music and drama. She taught us dozens of folks songs and allowed us to play with the musical instruments in her room upon occasion, always with direction and supervision. I remember many of the songs she taught us to this day and find myself humming or singing them as I go about my happenings. I taught most of them to my sons as they were growing up. They can belt out Erie Canal and Go Tell Aunt Rhody with the best of them!

  Mrs. Deel somehow also found the energy to produce and direct many plays throughout the school year. In the second grade we did a play based on nursery rhymes and folk songs. I had a part singing with a group of other kids and at first, I must confess, I wished for a larger/better role. My classmate Cindy H. was "Sweet Betsy From Pike" (one of the songs we sang) and I thought it might be fun to be the famous Betsy and have the limelight completely on me for a bit. I can still remember the look of horror on her face, though, when Mrs. Deel told her to roll around on the stage floor while we sang the lines:
"They soon reached the desert, where Betsy gave out,
And down in the sand she lay rolling about.
Ike in great wonder looked on in surprise,
Saying, "Betsy, get up, you'll get sand in your eyes."


  In the same play, my classmate Kevin M. was "Little Tommy Tucker Who Sang for his Supper." Cindy had to roll around on the floor, but Kevin had to sing "Tra la la la la la laaaaaa!" at the top of his voice. I watched them struggle, balancing the embarrassment of their roles with the wish to please Mrs. Deel and our teachers, and suddenly found that I was quite happy with my insignificant part in group choir. I'd do my tra la la-ing at a nice normal level along with several other kids, thank you very much!

  When I was in the fourth grade we took part in a Halloween play, and I was a ghost that sang and danced to "The Boogie Woogie Ghost". This was much better because there were only a few of us (four or five girls) and the song was fun, and we had sheets over our heads, so there was nothing embarrassing about it as I'd feared. But I might have been concerned about that for nothing because, for all my times on stage and in short films I've never suffered a moment of stage fright of any kind. I think perhaps when you are as silly, by nature, as I am, you have nothing to fear about performing. I'm an extreme introvert and probably spend more time alone than anyone you know, but I don't fear or at all mind being in front of crowds or performing. It's just not something I can enjoy as often as I do silence or the sound of the keyboard clipping under my fingertips.

  The Boogie Woogie Ghost song was so much fun that I find myself humming and singing it every year when Halloween starts creeping up. When the song was over, we were supposed to stand quietly against the side curtain while other acts were happening center stage. I was happy enough to do that, but they had this hinged black cat hanging from the wall or curtain (I don't recall which) near my head. You may or may not have seen decoration like this in your school. He was made of thick paper and his limbs were attached with little round pieces of metal which made them hinged. Thus he could be arranged however the decorator liked, kicking up one foot, standing straight and tall, swinging his arms over his head, etc.

  Everything went off without a hitch in the countless practices and for several rehearsals, of course, but when the play itself was happening and at our final show, the one we performed for our parents, that cat's leg slipped down and bonked me on the head! Very surreptitiously, and with "good girl" intentions I put it back exactly where it had been. A few moments later it bonked me in the head again. This time I heard a few people in the audience snicker. I smiled, glad that at least the annoying cat was entertaining. I was pretty sure the play was losing them. I put the leg back approximately where it had started out, but less than a minute later it bonked me on the head again. With great frustration and not the least bit of stealth, I shoved the cats leg up much higher than it had originally started out, and I took the largest step forward that I could take. Considering there were other children almost directly in front of me, that was a very small large step. Several people in the audience laughed outright at my newest antics, and I realized that the cat must look funny now. He or she was really kicking up the heels, or paws, as it were. I felt my original frustration melt away as I imagined how the whole scene had looked from the audience's perspective. How entertaining! I watched as the kids on the stage and the teachers back stage looked around in confusion. Nothing center stage was intended to be funny and yet the audience kept snickering. I had to contain the desire to whisper some not-so-quiet explanation about that danged hinged cat. I could hear the adults in the audience whispering to one another and saw many of them pointing at me. I watched them and realized I did not mind one bit that they were looking my way. Once again the hinged cat struck and still managed to bonk me firmly on the head, despite my stepping forward. Without stopping to think it out, I turned and angrily shoved the cat's foot all the way up in front of it's own face. The audience roared with appreciation. I felt my anger melt away completely. This was great fun! But when I turned back around, I could see Mrs. Deel scowling and shaking her head at me. I understood, the show must go on and it was not a show about Dee Dee and the Danged Hinged Cat. I resolved to do absolutely nothing the next time that leg fell, but I had finally put it up well enough that it did not bonk me even one more time. The cat stared at his own toe claws for the remainder of the play and I'm certain Mrs. Deel breathed a sigh of relief.

  In Mr. Dotson's 5th grade class, to my great delight, I was selected to play a witch. I loved Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Wendy the Good Witch both of comic book fame and Bewitched was my favorite television show of all time. I had a real love for witches! Mr. Dotson and his assistance (forgive me I do not remember that lovely ladies name!) helped many of us make our own props and/or costumes pieces for the play. For me that meant they helped me make my witch hat. On the last day before Halloween the school had a costume contest. I was selected as a finalist but probably the school made hat and the witchy dance I did when I had to walk for the judges got me that far. My "costume" itself was just a black dress and black stockings and black shoes. As a finalist, I spent several hours sitting on the bleachers with a lot of other kids that were waiting while the contestants were being chosen and then slowly eliminated. I spent a lot of time getting to know a very nice guy named Shane, even better than I'd already known him, and I had already thought he was one of the coolest and nicest guys in school. I remember thinking though, that it would have been better if this break from class had happened last year or even next year. It was not be too bad to be in the room with Mr. Dotson and my classmates. Mr. Dotson was by far my favorite teacher ever.

  In the witch play I did my part and was rewarded with Mr. Dotson's and Mrs. Deel's appreciation and warm words. It was a fun play and seemed a success to me. Though I don't remember if Rose said, "It," once we had an audience in front of us. She was a classmate that had an awful time saying her lines. Rose was a deep country girl and was supposed to say, "It's come," or "It's here." I don't remember which. I do remember that she usually pronounced "It" in the hillbilly manner which my mother discouraged from her girls. Still, I was very familiar with it because my adopted uncle, always, and my dad, sometimes, said, "Hit," instead of "It." Poor Rose was forced to approach the stage over and over, struggling to remember to say, "It" instead of "Hit." Many of her classmates laughed at her, including, I am sad to admit, myself. But I did approach her later and tell her I didn't understand why they wouldn't just let her say "Hit." She smiled warmly at me, and I knew she was too sweet to hold grudges, or perhaps was not even offended when we snickered when she was told repeatedly, "No. No! Rose! IT, not HIT. Go back off the stage and try it again."

  The next year I had traded schools and was going to CES instead of LFE, and Mrs. Deel selected me to play the lead in a play called Mrs. Frosty February. I was possibly selected because I had failed two grades and was older than all the other kids, thus looking more matronly than the other girls. But, given my short stature and baby face, I can hope that Mrs. Deel was suitably impressed with my witch performance. Perhaps she remembered that hinged cat and felt I was going to steal the limelight anyway so she might as well give it to me. (I'm assuming not since I was on my best behavior as the witch, but it is possible.) It was fun being the lead in the play and memorizing more lines than the other kids was not a problem. I've always been pretty good at remembering words when I want to, it is numbers that leak out of my brain like an unstanched wench. Maybe they slip out my ears while I am sleeping? I do not know. The only lines I remember from the play, however, were my friend April's lines. She had to recite the poem: "Afternoon on a Hill" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) who was born in February. The poem went:


I will be the gladdest thing
  Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
  And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds        
  With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
  And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
  Up from the town,        
I will mark which must be mine,
  And then start down!


  I fell in love with the verse and asked April to write it down for me. She did and I memorized it along with my own lines. As she spoke it in front of the audience I could have quietly fed her her lines if she'd lost her grip on them. Later all the miscellaneous lines I had to learn drifted out of my head, but because I still repeated that one to friends or family or to myself, it remains in my head for my enjoyment. I still have the paper where April wrote the poem down at my request too. It's in a cherished scrapbook.

  I don't remember any issues with Mrs. Frosty February; Everything went smoothly. And years later, when I first became a mother, in that same grand month, I looked down that the baby and thought of that play. Here is another, and the very best, reason to love February. I was Mrs. Frosty February indeed then, and will be forevermore.

  In the sixth grade, Mrs. Deel herded us through a rather elaborate Christmas Play. I was elected as part of the choir once again and was fine with that role. I enjoyed standing near my very good friend, Stuart and singing, "Winter Wonderland," while that magical white stuff drifted down outside making it more and more likely we might get to head home early for the day. The most memorable bits of that play were when one of our teachers, the formidable and sometimes even frightening Mrs. M. said, "Another one Bites the Dust!" right after another glass Christmas ornament was accidentally nudged off a garland they had strung up behind us. It crashed to pieces on the hard wooden floor of the stage. The class had no idea she even knew what modern songs were. I suppose we all thought she listened to dirges in her dungeon. We erupted into laughter when the normally hard-assed teacher quoted Queen for our amusement.

  Another time, they had the kids line up along the stage. Trying to fit all three classes in one row (almost 100 kids) on the stage proper, they had us stand sideways and scrunch up pretty tightly. My pal, David V., was snug against me from behind in a manner that we were forced into. I was pretty sure this was not the best position to force a bunch of sixth graders into and was grateful (for once) that I was a girl and also grateful I had a girl standing in front of me. I was trying to not feel David behind me and striving to survive this embarrassing experience when he made it all better by saying jovially, "Gee your hair smells terrific!" He quoted it from a commercial for shampoo with that same long name, "Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific!" I started giggling and turned my head so Mrs. M. would not see me and impale me on a bed of nails or feed me to the pet alligators she kept in her mote. Soon the teachers realized we were too many to fit across the stage in such a manner and separated us into two lines, to my great relief.

  The last memorable thing I held onto about that Christmas play was learning a new song. This was in the days when you could do the full out Nativity scene in a school play and it was part of this one. We also sang several "religious" songs including "Joy to the World", which I already knew from singing it every Christmas at home and at church, and "Children Go Where I Send Thee," which was brand new to me and helped make that play a very happy one indeed. I loved that song and loved to learn new things!

  Due to my mother not allowing any after school or outside of school activities (other than church related ones, and my church never did a play or anything cool like that while I was growing up.) I enjoyed being part of 4H activities and competitions, forensic contest (speech and debate) and talent contests at school. I was the happiest 4H member in the world. I studied one subject after another, going through several books in one year when some of my classmates studied the same thing all year and might not even finish it. I could tell you everything you wanted to know and more about horses, dogs, cats, whales, dolphins, gardening, and more. I jumped on every school related activity that did not require money. I sang "Love is a Rose" with my friend Cindy D. We practiced until Sandi was so sick of the song she said she hoped she never heard it again in her whole life. I danced to Queen's "Body Language" with Nancy and Michelle. I heard that song on the radio the other day and the images came flooding back in a happy rush. I remembered a couple of the moves, how we all helped choreographed our dance, debating who should stand in the middle, the blonde (me) or the tallest (Michelle.) I think we wound up putting me in the middle, but I am not certain. I nearly blushed at the lyrics. I found myself astounded that we did not meet with more resistance when we danced to that song on a school stage. Perhaps the teachers could not clearly understand the lyrics. There was little to no micromanaging in those days, though we kids certainly thought grown ups were in our business way too much. We picked out a song and practically pole danced in school and no one said a word other than, "Good job!". It is probably thanks to kids like us, that kids these days  have to get their acts and songs approved. We just marched up there and surprised them with our gyrating hips and the forthright and sexual lyrics. "You've got the cutest ass I've ever seen." Though some of the words left me scratching my head back then, and I still do not know what they mean. "Knock me down for a six any time."? I do remember some of the teachers looking surprised. I do not remember being embarrassed. I only remember thinking the act might be a hit, especially with the boys. Now, I find myself wondering why we rather conservative and usually "good little girls" did not hesitate in our choice. It had a fun beat, and it was a neat new song, that was all we cared about.

  In forensic contests, I read "The Raggedy Man" (in honor of Crit, our own Raggedy Man) and "Elisabeth Blackwell" (at the formidable Mrs. M.s suggestion and because I loved the idea behind that poem.) I learned and loved "The Cremation of Sam McGee" when my friend Daniel S. read it and "Casey at the Bat" when some other schoolmate read that one. Each time I participated in these events I felt enhanced. I wished for more and more of them. Why did we have so few of these activities throughout the school year? Each time I fell more in love with words and poetry, with music, with dance, and with all the performing arts. And every time I marveled that I did not have the "stage fright" most of my friends spoke of. I was there to read to the audience, to dance, to sing. This was a gift I was giving them and they could listen and watch or they could get up and leave the room. It mattered not a whit to me. But I had learned so many cool songs and more from these events, I felt they would be fools to get up and leave. Besides, would they rather be in the classroom? I figured not. And if they left, I knew I would still be enhanced by the experience, by the act of giving. Yes, this was my gift to them, but in giving them something I gave myself a gift too. I strengthened my connections and made myself more present. Such is the way of giving, of all of life, most all the time. Give, and it shall be given unto you. Luke 6:38. I decided that the Bible for sure got that one right!