Stripping in the dark and other teenage tales

One of these got his revenge on me for about a dozen years after high school. Although I was a bit of a nerd, I was hoping to shake it off before I was 21.

Sometimes, when one is trying to think about one's life, life intervenes.

I had decided, finally, to write something, probably humorous, about this odd life of mine. The one in which I moved house 56 times between age 18 and now. In which I have experienced all natural disasters except avalanche. In which I was tossed off horses 27 times, only three of those events being life-threatening. In which I have been a freelancer for all but seven years between age 21 and now, but held at least 11 jobs. It's probably more, but those were top-of-mind, as we used to say in advertising. Oops, twelve jobs. I had forgotten the one as creative director of a horrid little ad agency.

But I can't think of all the incidents in my life that are worthy of ink. Especially humorous ink. And it has to be humorous, because if I dwell on the sad or scary things, I might cry or die. Besides which, it wouldn't be very entertaining.

At one point, I decided to just sit and sort of think about my life year by year and jot down any experiences that might be amusing to someone else. OK. Year 1. Nope, don't remember a thing. Year 2. Same. Year 3. Same. Year 4....and so on, right up until about age 12 or so. Maybe no one recalls those early years, but simply think they do. I might have thought that, too, except as a journalist, it quickly came to my attention that I was told the things I recall: I didn't flat out remember them at all.

Preteen pretense

The height of 1950s spring fashion, matching dress and coat.

So let's start with that twelfth year. 

It was Eastertime, and I was pumped up about having a swell new beige dress with white polka dots and a matching coat in beige with white polka dots on the lapels. AND I had a new hat, beige with flowers. All of the finery was on my grandmother's dining room table. And so was a packet of catsup. And my little brother.

I'm quite sure someone had told me to put the clothes away upstairs, but I hadn't. Before long, my brother climbed across the table. The catsup was under my hat, until it was ON my hat, squished and squirted as my brother--for reasons unknown to me--crawled across the table.

I can't recall whether my mother or grandmother bought me a new hat, although I suspect they did. But the experience of my first grown-up outfit had been ruined.

See? That's not a funny story. Actually, it's rather sad. But it came to mind. The funny ones come to mind when I'm chatting with someone. And I'm rarely chatting with someone while I'm sitting in front of my computer.

Still, I'll give it another go. Just one more, I promise.

Adore-able

Fast forward a couple of years. I was 14, and had the part of the princess Adora* in the high school play, performed publicly a few times but mainly put on for the grade schools, of Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp. I was SO proud. The female lead. Me, a beautiful princess, with beautiful costumes and a handsome prince. Indeed, the handsome prince really was handsome, and I quite fancied him. Slender, dark hair, flashing dark eyes. Al F. (no more ID,just in case) was half German and half Puerto Rican. And he could dance. I've never known anyone since who could dance like he did, and I love to dance. Anyway, we finally did start dating. That didn't last too long, but we remained friends until he graduated a year before me. A few years later, I ran into him in a movie theater lobby while my date bought snacks. He was an air traffic controller for the Air Force. I wonder if they'd have liked to know that, on the night of my senior prom, he came over for wee hours breakfast my father was making for my friends and I, and pulled my father out the back door to see the "spaceship" Al had seen when he walked through the woods to our house.

Rendering of Aladdin in a deep cave being "saved" by the evil magician in a printed version of the story, drawn by French artist Albert Robida.

But that's an aside. The real story is this....

So there we were, in the scene where the wicked wizard who has imprisoned Adora drinks the poison she gives him and jumps out the window. In one dress rehearsal, someone had parked a chair behind that window opening, and the actor--who, by the way, was a very unpopular fellow, a rather supercilious nerd with a nasty streak--gave his head a good crack on the way out. It's a wonder, really, that he didn't break his neck. And one must wonder whether, considering his popularity, one of the crew hadn't stupidly left the chair there on purpose.

So, there we were in our first performance for the entirety of one local elementary school. I didn't forget any lines: whew! The worst part of acting, memorizing lines. At length, we came to the denouement, without discernible flaws. There was no chair behind the window; the teacher had checked and given us the OK from the wings.

The wizard snarled at me, and I offered him his glass of poisoned wine, which was supposed to save me and Aladdin from his threats and spells. (In those pre-PC days, no one objected to kids in a play giving pretend wine to characters in a play, although I hate to think of the demonstrations that would go on these days.)




The wizard took the glass I gave him, quaffed it right down as I sipped coyly at my glass as a princess would...and the audience erupted in laughter and shouts of, "She drank the poison."

Well, I only got a little bit.

And my error could have been worse. I could "poisoned" myself in front of the high school or public audiences. But at least I learned a lesson: Check your props and make absolutely sure the ones you need have your initials or something on them. That sort of translates to the rest of life, actually.

It isn't particularly funny. But then, it doesn't end there.

Shelley Winters as Mrs. Van Daan in the film version of The Diary of Anne Frank.

I did do more acting in high school, notably playing Mrs.Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank, in which we all got to change costumes on stage.  It couldn't be helped. The set was huge and stuck right through the proscenium arch. No curtain. And it was a two-storey set, as well; no time to sprint to the dressing rooms. So the director/teacher decided lights off and we'd change costumes in the dark in full 'view' of the audience. We were hardly likely to grope each other, it being the 1960s. 

Still, it was a little titillating, especially for the geeky boy who played Mr. Van Daan and who, every time I visited my hometown where he worked in the deli until we were at least 30, would loudly say, regardless of how many bodies deep the deli counter queue was, "Remember the time we took off our clothes together in the dark?" 

Cripes.


* Adora, short for Badroulbador, was the original name of the character from a later version of 1001 Arabian Nights. Disney changed it to Jasmine.
  
Copyright 2018 by Laura Harrison McBride