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Date Posted: 15:57:28 01/26/02 Sat
Author: Toddler Lion
Author Host/IP: qam1b-sif-86.monroeaccess.net / 12.27.214.87
Subject: I don't know why, but...

... something in my response to Bidcaller's quest for tomorrow triggered some really delightful and delicious memories. To make matters worse it also triggered a desire to share some of those memories here.

In another post here I mentioned Mrs. Rose, my first grade teacher. She may have been as responsible as anyone for the future forks in life's roads I took. She put me in the first grade Halloween Pageant and made me ride a broom! It may have been the pivotal point in the formation of a lifetime as a rascal, rapscallion, rou� and rauconteur performing upon a public stage and basking in the soul-soothing pleasure of making folks laugh "because" of me, not "at" me.

I was fourth in the chorus line to ride a broomstick as we "danced" and sang some silly first grade doggrel that I can - thankfully - no longer remember. Each of the chorus line were to prance-dance to front center stage and deliver our much practiced memorized addition to the overall grandeur of this theatrical production. It was a plan destined to swell every parental heart with pride and offer a modicum of momentary aggrandizement to the lives of approximately 40 midcity kids, over half of whom were already well set on a life of intermittent sojourns in the industries of license plate manufacturing or raising vegetables to feed other such guests of the state on the open alleuvial plains of middle Louisiana.

It came my turn to next deliver - with all the Shakespearean skills of a six-year-old - my contribution to the world of grease paint and houselights. As I pranced with bare-legged dignity in my shorts and construction paper witches hat to the forefront, the little monster, similarly clad, in front of me who had just had his moment in first-grade fame's spotlight developed a relapse of pre-K forgetfullness. He was supposed to go away from center stage by turning to his right and thereupon prance gleefully to the rear of the stage at an oblique angle while still mounted upon his broom.

The little scumbag forgot potty training and directions in one moment of mindlessness that I am sad to report repeated itself throughout his foreshortened life until he died one day on a construction site where he "forgot" there was no more building where he was walking eight storeys up. THAT IDIOT TURNED LEFT! Not only that, he didn't "prance." He cavorted. He stomped. He stumbled. He tripped over my broom as I entered my appointed place in the spotlight!

Even worse, he stepped on the carefully crafted shredded paper attached to the end of that broomstick fashioned by caring and concerned educators and the young hands of a school child... ME. That blithering scene stealer didn't just step on it. HE DECIMATED IT! His clodhoppers became entangled in it and he took a header into what might have been a winning swan dive in future Olympic competition. There was no such artistry or grace in the current event, however.

Naturally, the audience of beaming parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and future parole officers roared in appreciation of the spectacle. It was thus I was greeted into the world of performance art and public appearances. I was thunderstruck with childhood devastation as my world dissolved around my adult-laughter-filled ears. I glanced into the wings (actually to a place behind the piano just off the raised platform we called a stage) to seek out the solace and the life-saving direction of Mrs. Rose. It didn't help my angst at all to see her draped over the back of the piano playing teacher with tears of laughter streaming down her face or to notice that the teacher on the piano bench was also seriously slanted into a position that tantric yoga masters would one day dub "the jackass braying his ass off" position. What was I to do?!?!?!?!

Mrs. Rose watched between her gasps for air as I came to full halt in midstage, lifted the now bare broomstick and viewed it in youthful horror. She motioned somehow that I should go ahead and deliver my line anyway. Had I been possessed of the calmness of mind and spirit and less inclined to call spades a "stupid shovel" and to heck with where the clods fell even back then, who knows how my life may have progressed? We shall never know. I looked at that audience of parents doubled over in laughter and delivered the only line that could have done justice to my upbringing to that point. I looked tearfully at the bare broomstick, glanced again for divine intervention or Mrs. Rose's salvation and then faced the audience and announced informationally...

"HE BROKE MY DAMNED BROOM!"

Pandemonium reigned for a lifetime it seemed as Mrs. Rose lost her footing somehow and the piano player discovered that someone had overwaxed the piano bench. They were in a pile of emotional shaking on the floor at the foot of the stage. I stood, awe struck by what I had wrought and a career was born at that moment. The coup d'etat arrived moments later as she who gave me birth and a few American A gene sets said to my old man who was sitting next to her in a voice that later shamed efforts to communicate with Apollo astronauts, "I've told you about watching your language around those boys!"

I then stalked-goosestepped off to the rear of the stage on a severe oblique angle after executing a proper RIGHT TURN and shouldering a now bare broomstick onto my right shoulder, military precision style. I later heard some of the school's teachers lamenting that they would not ever again be called upon to stage a production to rival that performance. Robert C. Davies Elementary School had shut down it's dramatic efforts on a high note, leaving the audience with a memory of a never again to be repeated, or even challenged for memorability, spectacle.

Neither of my parents attended a single public perfomance of mine until I was a full adult. That day may also rank in history for another memory it brings.

It was the only time in my old man's life I saw him with tears in his eyes.

Thanks for letting me share this. By the way, I applied a little first grade boy's manually (and liberally) applied directional training to the kid who turned the wrong way. I lost track of him in later life, but someone told me that he had gone on to become a Louisiana politician or some other form of criminal ne'er do well.

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Replies:

Re: I don't know why, but... -- Patsy, 20:38:22 01/27/02 Sun
- Re: I don't know why, but... -- Sire Loin of Laf-a-lot, 21:15:22 01/27/02 Sun
  - Re: I don't know why, but... -- Sage, admiring the belt & suspenders, 21:30:58 01/27/02 Sun
    - Re: I don't know why, but... -- Exhibitionist Lion, 22:35:59 02/01/02 Fri