When I was in elementary school I played John Hancock in my third grade play about the founding of America.  I can’t say for sure, but I think that my speaking part was a manufactured add-in as I joined the class mid-year and just days before the big show.  I can’t say for sure because I never asked, but looking back I find it unlikely that the authors would have included a part where John Hancock casually interrupts the constitutional conventioners by sauntering down from the risers into the crowd which prompts someone to ask him whether he knows what the document is, to which he enthusiastically responds “Of course! That’s the declaration of independence!” and then makes an exaggerated motion of signing his name with a real feather.

Plays were always a real big deal at my school, and I imagine, at others.  In my town, the kids who were deemed to be “good actors” were almost as popular as the kids who could make good bubble letters, or who suffered any injuries resulting in casts or prolonged school absence.  My friend Peter was the most popular kid in school on two different occasions on account of injuries to his head and neck.  The reason those injuries were so cool was that they carried the risk of protracted pain and potential disability, so when he slipped out of the jungle gym and onto the icy ground, even without today’s social media, the word about Peter’s injury’s spread like herpes through the student population and by the time I heard about it on the playground, the chances he would die were believed to be 50/50.  

At our school, there was a guy named Luke, who was a pretty funny guy who everyone was certain would become a “pretty successful” screen actor because he did things like have bright red hair, imitate Mike Myers, and wear colorful sweaters that everyone thought were cool but if anyone else, such as me for example, would have worn them, he would have been made fun of for years. 

In eighth grade, we performed what was basically a musical medley from the 1960’s.  It was slightly more confusing than this because our always-creative music teacher decided that instead of skipping from song to song in a rational fashion using scenes about the various artists and performers, we would carry on a subplot about a tornado which periodically blew across Vermont and picked up our town and its resident performers in different eras and dropped us off in different time periods, where we had suddenly changed clothes and knew the words to various once-popular songs. The play also involved a monster named Mongo who either caused, or was related to causing the tornado and which looked like a bear. 

Despite my success playing John Hancock, I had retired from acting by that point and was a member of the “pit band” which meant I got to play the drums and have my back to the audience.  Luke was supposed to be one of the stars of this show and he was supposed to be Jerry Lee Lewis, singing his famous song “Great Balls of Fire” which is a song that includes the lyrics “kiss me baba” and some discussion of nail clipping but unfortunately, due to some external factor, possibly the tornado, began pounding a fake piano like Lewis, but accidentally launched into a “I know this isn’t the right song but I can’t help myself” version of Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up” which is a song about a man so in love that he is itching like a man on a fuzzy tree, or possibly acting like a bug. 

While both songs have a lot to do with being deliriously in love, the Pit Band noticed the discrepancy immediately and very carefully stopped playing all together so as to make sure that everyone in the audience noticed. Luke left the stage very quickly but soon the tornado came again and swept us off to Wyoming, or Colorado, where we sang a Music Teacher Original which included the lyrics “Whoopee Ka-YO Ka-ye!”

When the play was over we were all very upset, mostly because we were worried that Luke’s career as an actor might be over, but also because we’d just done a play about a monster, and tornado in Vermont, in front of real people, including girls.  During the curtain call my teacher pointed at me and made me play a drum solo, which one classmate later described as “awesome.”  Not bad for a guy whose last on stage performance involved pretend-signing someone else’s name with a feather.