Benefits of surviving the goosebumps
There’s one in every crowd — somebody who shares online a 60-year-old mimeographed program of a PTA-sponsored talent show.
What better way to stir significant memories during this season of reminiscing? Gives me fresh goosebumps.
Were you a confident, fearless talent-show performer? Maybe you were scared even if you were good. I was bad and scared.
"'Twas the night before Christmas …”
Back then, if you couldn’t sing “Que Sera, Sera” or tap or twirl or play accordion or piano, you could at least recite something.
Happily, no video footage exists of my “Night Before Christmas.” A friend had agreed to stand behind the heavy maroon stage curtain to prompt me if necessary. Good plan. Then I realized, gasp, that I’d left my text in our fourth-grade classroom! Not good.
Stage fright is rarely fatal. I survived and skipped just one verse. Whew!
My mother had bribed me to participate. All I got, however, was some Avon perfume. A 100 dollars would have been more appropriate.
The fourth grade wasn’t my year to shine. We staged a little Christmas play in our classroom. Our mothers comprised the audience. Me, I was supposed to leap onto the scene exclaiming, “I heard the magic words, ‘Peace on earth, good will to men,’ and I came without delay!” To this day, I remember that line perfectly. I didn’t then.
Yep, I omitted the magic words. Not good.
To make things worse, Mrs. Conrad, our teacher, exclaimed, “You left out the magic words ‘Peace on earth good will to men!'”
RIP Mrs. Conrad. Thanks for providing information critical to the plot and for squelching any aspirations I might have had ever to be in another play. Teachers shape lives. Yes, indeed.
As for the old above-mentioned talent show program, it’s from later — my sophomore year at the same country school. That show I entered of my own volition, thinking I could sing and play guitar.
I knew I wasn’t spectacular. What mattered most was that I’d found a perfect way not to have to recite any more poems. Yay!
Stage fright had lost its grip. After my slated song, I remember singing Elvis’s “His Latest Flame” impromptu to give the cheerleaders the extra time they needed to get their act together. Forgetting the last verse, I explained I was just filling time anyway. Something like that. What stage presence! So there, Mrs. Conrad!
OK. Too much storytelling and not enough profundity. Sorry.
To put a bow on it, some words from my friend David, who posted that old program:
"I think our folks did us right to encourage a little self-confidence in front of others.”
His mother (mine too) also took him to community concerts to hear real talent.
"It’s a gift she gave that rings true even today,” David said.
If your parents likewise pushed you with love and took you places too, lucky you.
If you are a parent, be that kind. When you must, stoop to bribery.
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Benefits of surviving the goosebumps
