Recently, experiencing an unusually strong wave of Friday
afternoon procrastination, I responded to an email with an animated file of a
little boy who was dancing in a way that would put the latest ballroom dancing
competition participant to shame if only for the spirit behind it.
This little guy had the moves and was not afraid to use
them. It wasn’t until later that I
realized why I had felt so strongly about this boy and his dancing. This boy was me. I had done this exact thing, minus the video
camera (which hadn’t yet been invented for personal use) when I was in the
first grade.
What follows is my recollection with a smattering of
observation from 33 years hence.
Alia and the First Grade Talent Show
I’m not
sure exactly when it was announced
that our school would be holding a talent show. I’m not even sure how I came to the idea that
I would do a dance routine ala the currently popular Saturday Night Fever
except that I seem to recall my step-sister Tracy and her friends mimicking
routines and my watching them do so.
Each in their satin jackets, they argued and fussed about what each
dance was called and how to execute them for hours on Saturday afternoons.
I want to think it was “Funky Town Funky Town
You
know, I don’t even remember how it is I came by a .45 single of the song or how
I signed up, but there I was in the gym
with the little black disc in its paper sleeve.
I clutched it so tightly to my chest while waiting on the wooden
bleachers for my turn that I had to keep replacing the little widget which kept
the 45 on the record player. Anyone
younger than I am will more than likely
not remember those, but Google tells me they’re called “spiders’.
Since
this is more about what I remember and not what I don’t, suffice it to say that
the concrete details of how I had come to this point apparently never made it
to the memory file cabinet or at best, are misfiled and I will stumble upon
them later. This next part, though…this
part is crystal clear.
It was
almost my turn to audition but I was not nervous. Coming off of my previous critical acclaim as
“Susie Snowflake” in kindergarten and my stoic portrayal of The Marine for the
Veteran’s Day lesson earlier that year, I had it in the bag. I had been watching carefully and it was
going to be simple. That-that, then this and that and turn for as long as it
takes for the record to play. Simple.
The
principal of my school, who was a thin, birdish woman with a severely short
haircut sat with a tall woman who had Farrah Fawcett feathered bangs. I am still fascinated by how feathering
works, by the way. I think she was the
combined music and art teacher.
There they were sitting behind a
folding table under the basketball hoop, each with black and white theme
notebooks and each with a blue Bic ball point pen. Actually, this moment might be why I feel
compelled to buy these pens when I see them, with their transparent barrels and
small blue caps which haven’t changed since 1970. I love those pens.
The
Farrah Fawcett lady called me over and stood to take the record from me, raising her eyebrows at
the title of the song before placing on the player and setting the arm.
“Okay.”
She said as she went to retake her metal folding seat. “Show us your routine.”
The
first few notes of the song got by me before I found my rhythm and I began
performing the moves I had seen my step-sister do, over and over. When coming back from a spin on the fifth
repetition, I noticed a glance passing between the two women which at the time
I interpreted as “Good gracious, how did we not know that we had this kind of
talent here? Right here at, Presumpscott
Elementary, we have such grace and style and it has passed under our noses as
this peculiar little girl!”
Having
been in their shoes as an adult, I’m pretty sure now that that look meant “Good
gracious, how on earth do we sit through this without laughing?”
Nevertheless, I danced. I danced and I danced and when I felt I had
done it in one place too long, I started dancing from corner to corner of the
rectangle laid out for jump shots. By
that point, I was ready for the song to be over, but it played on and on I
danced. I left the comfort of the
learned routine and went tribal, calling upon the synthesized music and bassline
to tell me what my body would do. I
worked it. Oh yes, I did
Eventually,
the song wound down and the arm automatically returned to its carriage. A gym, if you remember, is nothing but
noise. The only sound that could be heard was the
soft whirr of the record player as the turn table revolved. Farrah Fawcett looked at the principal. The Principal returned her gaze and they kept
on looking at each other until someone behind me giggled.
It was
then that The Principal turned slowly back to me, as if she was using those
moments to call upon every ounce of poise and grace she possessed. I know that now. At the time, I thought they were trying to
conjure the words for my magnificence.
“Thank
you.” She said. “Ahh….that was
nice. Did you ..um…learn that on your
own?” I had never heard The Principal
use “Um” before. She was one of those
ladies who corrected you for saying “ain’t” and wouldn’t give you what you were
sent to the office to retrieve without replacing “Can I” with “may I”. I must
have really amazed her, I thought.
“Yes.”
I answered. “Well…my step sister taught me some. I made up the rest.”
She
glanced back at Farrah Fawcett again and then back to me. “I see.”
Farrah
cleared her throat and thanked me as well before they both sent me back to Mrs.
Laughlin’s classroom.
Some
time went by and an announcement came
that the Principal and Farrah Fawcett had thought very, very hard about
everyone’s entry and since there were so many (and mine was so interesting, I
thought to myself. Clearly, they were just going to offer me First Place
Second
auditions? I had wowed them the first
time, sure, but that had been improvised…off the cuff…they really expected me
to do that again? Now, for you adults,
logic is going to tell you that it would have been that way anyway, because
there was still the show to do. My
logic, which is non-linear even now, did not allow for a repeat performance as
good as the one before. There was no
way. It was a “one and done”so to speak.
I would have to do the whole thing
again, replicating the free style. How
was I going to do that?
In the
end, my second audition was lackluster.
This was mostly due to the fact that not only could I not repeat the
improvised portions of the routine, but by that point I had forgotten the rehearsed
parts as well, as children do when something more pressing replaces the events
of the past. Chocolate milk for lunch or
the fact that you’ve been scolded for licking the red macaroni pieces that were
meant for the art project, for instance. You see, it’s
not that children are forgetful as much as they make more room for the present
and as life moves along, adults seem to make more room for the past and future.
I was let down lightly with a “Keep
working on it.” I watched the show with
my class, slightly miffed that I wasn’t in it, but mostly relieved. My older sister, who already found me an
endless source of embarrassment, was eternally grateful as I found out later but
that’s her story to tell.
The winners were a pair of brothers
who lip-synced in costume to an old folk song and the runner up was a girl who
could play the theme from “Days of Our Lives” on the piano. I learned through this experience that jumping
into things and expecting instant success isn’t the best approach most of the
time and since then, I’ve tried quite a few
things, but have yet to reach the level of fame and fortune I was expecting for my debut
at Presumpscott School
This is most true when it comes to
writing. I’ve been doing it since I could
hold a pencil and make scratches into words, but I have never been widely
published and I am certainly not living in the brick loft apartment in New York City
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