It seems like the festivals never end during the spring semester. Our choir was going to take part in the regional Choral Festival. We would be evaluated and get a grade similar to the Solo and Ensemble Festival, either a 1, 2 or 3, with 1 being the best.
One thing you may have already figured out about our choir is that ANYONE can get into it. All you have to do is register for the class. Our choir teacher told us about how the larger schools hold auditions for their choirs and if you simply lacked the ability to sing, you didn't get in. The larger schools were always able to get 1s during the Festivals. Our teacher told us that because our choir was open, we would probably NEVER get a 1 and that getting a 2 was likely the best we would ever be able to achieve. She didn't go around pointing fingers at our weaker voices, she just gave us a realistic expectation.
The Choral Festival was held in Hobbs, which was about a 90-minute drive away from Artesia. We loaded up on the bus. I was really excited about going because I knew I would likely run into Dayz there. While Orld was also in the choir, that other guy from the Drama Festival and Student Council wasn't a part of it. That would mean a little less irritation.
We arrived at Hobbs High School in the morning. We weren't scheduled to perform until the afternoon, so we watched a few choirs perform. They were so much better than us. It really doused my spirits to know that we would probably never do much better than average. Between choirs, I tried to located Dayz. I was unsuccessful
Then came time for us to all get on the bus and go out to eat. We went to Furr's Cafeteria. When we arrived at the shopping center, I saw the buses for the Portales School District driving away. That meant I missed Dayz and an opportunity to eat lunch with her. I wondered if I was ever going to catch up with her.
After we ate, we returned to Hobbs High School. When we got there, we saw the Portales buses in the parking lot. I saw students getting off the buses. I had to wait for the people in front of me to get off our bus before I could run outside. I quickly located Dayz and ran up behind her. Orld was also hot on my tail. I surprised her and she seemed happy to see me. I ignored any reaction she had to seeing Orld.
However, we didn't get much of a chance to talk because we had to go and do one last rehearsal before our performance. It was really hard for me to concentrate because I didn't know if I would get to see her again.
We waited out in the hall before we were set to go on. I saw Dayz one last time in the hallway. I recall wanting to go to a water fountain to get something to drink, but our choir teacher wouldn't let me. That meant I was going to have to sing with a dry throat. That was not fun.
We sang three pieces. Per the rules, one had to be acapella and another had to be in a foreign language. We just learned the phonetics and sang it. One the hard parts about acapella was staying on pitch. Gifted adjudicators could always tell when we wound up off pitch and we would get graded down for it.
Normally, after our performance, I would have gotten to just hang around with Dayz. However, this particular Wednesday that the Choral Festival was scheduled was also the same day the students who qualified for the academic trip were leaving for Albuquerque. I was supposed to go on that trip along with two other students from choir. However, they had arranged for someone to drive us back to Artesia after we performed and then the faculty member in charge of the Student Council would drive us to Albuquerque. I will go more into detail about the academic trip in the next blog post. Just know that it meant more days off from school.
As expected, we got a 2. I guess we could pride ourselves on the fact that we didn't get a 3.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Foiled!
The previous year in the ninth grade, I ran for Student Council for our sophomore year. There were about 15 of us running for ten slots that were available. Ever since I was in the sixth grade, I had been trying to get into Student Council. The problem for grades six through nine was that Student Council representatives were elected in the individual homerooms, and if you didn't get nominated in class, you stood no chance for getting to serve. All four years, no one would nominate me. For high school, there was just a general election that didn't require a nomination process. You could just run for the slots. (Yes, I know I could have nominated myself those years, but at that time, it just looked really egotistical and I still wouldn't have been elected. It only would have worked if no one else was willing to accept a nomination.)
We each got up and gave our speeches. For some reason, my speech was much shorter than everyone else's. I just said a few things saying I would do my best to represent the students and that was it. Everyone else made these grand statements and outrageous promises that they were not going to be able to keep. When the results were announced, I was not among the top ten. I was not listed among the two runners-up. I don't know where I placed, but I'm pretty certain it was last.
Those results were supposed to be passed on to the faculty member who was in charge of the Student Council. In the event that someone quit, the runners-up would be asked to serve, then the other people who also ran. Somehow, five of the students who were elected withdrew from the Council. I don't know why they did. (I know there was a rule that if you missed two Council meetings, they'd kick you out. That's probably what happened with a lot of them. However, it didn't make sense that they would miss meetings because you got to get out of one class a week to attend them.)
You would think that this would mean that I would be asked to serve. Well, I wasn't. I saw the faculty member in charge of the Council talking to the guy from the previous post who shoehorned his way into a friendship with Dayz. The faculty member appeared to be asking him to be on the Student Council, but I wasn't really certain that was the scope of the conversation, so I didn't say anything.
It was a few days later that I found out that he did indeed ask him to be on Student Council and he accepted. I complained to Mom that the other guy didn't even run the previous year, and I should have been approached to be on Student Council. Mom had no interest in talking to the faculty member, even though his classroom had been across the hall from hers. (In the spring semester, she started teaching a different class in a different building on campus. More on that later.)
Looking back, I realize that I should have spoken up at the time I thought something was going on. However, I didn't want to appear presumptuous and pushy, but that probably would have worked out better for me in this case. However, I'm still mad that five of the more popular students who got elected didn't think much of being on the Student Council when it meant so much to me. They shouldn't have run in the first place. Even worse, in the theme of this blog, it just made me seem like more of a loser because not only did I run for office and lose, but my opportunity to be on the Council went to someone who never even considered serving in the first place.
When elections for Student Council came for Junior year, that wasn't a problem. Only nine students ran for the ten spots, so that guaranteed me a spot. It also meant that those who ran wanted to be a part of it. They announced a write-in winner for the tenth spot, and all ten of us remained on the Council for the entire school year. The guy who took my spot for Sophomore year didn't run. I guess he didn't like being on the Council that much after all.
So, what happened to that guy? He wound up an elementary school teacher in Weatherford, TX. That means he never has to deal with a Student Council. (A side note: I should point out that I don't hate this guy. He was actually a pretty good friend for the most part. He wasn't aware that I wanted to be on Student Council, and I'm certain if I had approached him in a mature manner following his conversation with the teacher and explained my position, he would have requested the teacher ask me to serve instead. But I don't think I was capable of a mature approach at the time. I probably would have just yelled at him and made things worse.)
We each got up and gave our speeches. For some reason, my speech was much shorter than everyone else's. I just said a few things saying I would do my best to represent the students and that was it. Everyone else made these grand statements and outrageous promises that they were not going to be able to keep. When the results were announced, I was not among the top ten. I was not listed among the two runners-up. I don't know where I placed, but I'm pretty certain it was last.
Those results were supposed to be passed on to the faculty member who was in charge of the Student Council. In the event that someone quit, the runners-up would be asked to serve, then the other people who also ran. Somehow, five of the students who were elected withdrew from the Council. I don't know why they did. (I know there was a rule that if you missed two Council meetings, they'd kick you out. That's probably what happened with a lot of them. However, it didn't make sense that they would miss meetings because you got to get out of one class a week to attend them.)
You would think that this would mean that I would be asked to serve. Well, I wasn't. I saw the faculty member in charge of the Council talking to the guy from the previous post who shoehorned his way into a friendship with Dayz. The faculty member appeared to be asking him to be on the Student Council, but I wasn't really certain that was the scope of the conversation, so I didn't say anything.
It was a few days later that I found out that he did indeed ask him to be on Student Council and he accepted. I complained to Mom that the other guy didn't even run the previous year, and I should have been approached to be on Student Council. Mom had no interest in talking to the faculty member, even though his classroom had been across the hall from hers. (In the spring semester, she started teaching a different class in a different building on campus. More on that later.)
Looking back, I realize that I should have spoken up at the time I thought something was going on. However, I didn't want to appear presumptuous and pushy, but that probably would have worked out better for me in this case. However, I'm still mad that five of the more popular students who got elected didn't think much of being on the Student Council when it meant so much to me. They shouldn't have run in the first place. Even worse, in the theme of this blog, it just made me seem like more of a loser because not only did I run for office and lose, but my opportunity to be on the Council went to someone who never even considered serving in the first place.
When elections for Student Council came for Junior year, that wasn't a problem. Only nine students ran for the ten spots, so that guaranteed me a spot. It also meant that those who ran wanted to be a part of it. They announced a write-in winner for the tenth spot, and all ten of us remained on the Council for the entire school year. The guy who took my spot for Sophomore year didn't run. I guess he didn't like being on the Council that much after all.
So, what happened to that guy? He wound up an elementary school teacher in Weatherford, TX. That means he never has to deal with a Student Council. (A side note: I should point out that I don't hate this guy. He was actually a pretty good friend for the most part. He wasn't aware that I wanted to be on Student Council, and I'm certain if I had approached him in a mature manner following his conversation with the teacher and explained my position, he would have requested the teacher ask me to serve instead. But I don't think I was capable of a mature approach at the time. I probably would have just yelled at him and made things worse.)
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
I act in a group, Part 2
In my previous post, I started telling what happened to me at the first High School Drama Festival I went to at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales.
The Drama Festival also included a number of workshops. There was one workshop that offered some warm up exercises. Since I would be performing that afternoon, I thought it would be a good idea to warm up for that (even though I only had one line.) I arrived at the classroom. There were some other people already there. I went to the back and took off my jacket, on which I recently had my mother sew my All-State patch on it. One of the girls said, "Oh, he went to All-State, too." I then realized these girls were at the Solo and Ensemble Festival and heard me sing. One of them was the one who had talked to me afterwards.
Her name was Dayz. She was a year older than me and went to school in Portales. She had medium-length dark blonde hair and blue eyes. I was surprised that someone this attractive would want to talk to me. She was definitely out of my league, but I felt like I had a shot with her.
Later that afternoon, we performed our play. Afterward, we were critiqued by the adjudicators. They had praise for our lead actress, who was a foreign exchange student from Germany playing an Irish woman, but they didn't seem too pleased with the production as a whole. Even though I only came in toward the end with another actor and we said one line each, we were criticized for how we brought in the body of the male lead character like it was a mannequin covered with a sheet, which it was. Honestly, we did not put that much thought into acting like we were carrying 150 pounds of dead weight. You tend not to pay attention to details like that when you only have one line.
Dayz had been sitting in the audience watching our presentation. She actually liked our production (or was maybe being nice). I hung out with her that afternoon, watching some of the other plays. Unfortunately, Orld and this other guy decided to hang out with us as well. They also thought they had a shot with her. I was irritated that I met a very attractive girl who seemed to admire me and they were trying to shoehorn their way in without giving her any reason for liking them. She saw ME at Solo and Ensemble! She saw ME wearing a jacket with an All-State patch! She saw ME carry in the body and deliver that one line in the play! They weren't even in the plays we performed. All they did was show up and start talking to her while I was in the middle of a conversation.
That night, we went to see the Univeristy Theatre Department's production of "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds." I was familiar that there was a movie with that title, but didn't know it was a play. Once there, I located Dayz and sat with her. Orld and the other guy located us and also sat with us. More irritation.
The one stunning thing about the production was that the Theatre Department mounted it on a raked stage. I had never seen that before. It was hard to concentrate on the performances because I was completely bewildered as to how the actors were able to keep from rolling off into the audience.
Our Drama Club went back to our motel that night. We didn't do anything else but go to bed.
On Saturday, we woke up and drove down to Portales. The previous two days, we had eaten our breakfast and lunch at the University cafeteria, because the school was paying for that. This particular morning, we went to the cafeteria to find it closed. I said, "Oh, yeah! I thought it would be closed. UNM's cafeteria was closed on Saturday during All-State." My teacher got mad at me for not telling her that in the first place, but that wasn't really my fault. We ate breakfast at Tastee-Freez. I had an order of pancakes. When the waitress brought it to my table, I was surprised at how large the pancakes were. I said, "I'm going to need two plates for this!" Very soon after that, the waitress brought me an extra plate. I was only kidding about that!
There was a make-up workshop that morning that would teach how to create beards and mustaches. The person who taught the class was one of the professors in the Theatre Department. I volunteered to have him put a beard and mustache on me. It was incredible. It looked real. I walked around the rest of the day with that on my face. Everyone was surprised and shocked because up to that point, I'd never had any facial hair.
I also surprised Dayz. I spent the rest of the morning hanging around with her AND Orld AND the other guy watching the productions. I asked for her address so I could write her. They asked for her address, too.
We watched the final high school production of the festival. It was a good play, but close to the end, the lights just suddenly went out. At first we thought the play was over, but it wasn't. They got the lights back on, the performance resumed, and... the lights went out again. This happened three more times. It must have been very frustrating for the actors on the stage. I know that I would have just given up and walked off if that kept happening to me.
The Festival ended with a pizza party in the cafeteria. All the schools sat separately, which meant I didn't get to spend any more time with Dayz. But that wasn't the end of her story. I'll be writing more about her in future posts.
They handed out awards for actors and productions. There were three levels of awards: Superior, Excellent and Honorable Mention. The foreign exchange student got an Honorable Mention award for the play I was in. Rod and another student from our school got Honorable Mentions for the other play we did. I got nothing, but I can't really say that I was really expecting anything for my one line, no matter how brilliantly I recited it.
We drove home. I scared Mom and Loyd with my beard and mustache. I had to take it off because there was no way it would last until I got to school on Monday. The funny thing is that, even though I am almost 50 years old now, I have never been able to grow enough facial hair to make a beard and mustache anywhere near as good as the one that I had that day at the age of 15. And believe me, I've tried.
The Drama Festival also included a number of workshops. There was one workshop that offered some warm up exercises. Since I would be performing that afternoon, I thought it would be a good idea to warm up for that (even though I only had one line.) I arrived at the classroom. There were some other people already there. I went to the back and took off my jacket, on which I recently had my mother sew my All-State patch on it. One of the girls said, "Oh, he went to All-State, too." I then realized these girls were at the Solo and Ensemble Festival and heard me sing. One of them was the one who had talked to me afterwards.
Her name was Dayz. She was a year older than me and went to school in Portales. She had medium-length dark blonde hair and blue eyes. I was surprised that someone this attractive would want to talk to me. She was definitely out of my league, but I felt like I had a shot with her.
Later that afternoon, we performed our play. Afterward, we were critiqued by the adjudicators. They had praise for our lead actress, who was a foreign exchange student from Germany playing an Irish woman, but they didn't seem too pleased with the production as a whole. Even though I only came in toward the end with another actor and we said one line each, we were criticized for how we brought in the body of the male lead character like it was a mannequin covered with a sheet, which it was. Honestly, we did not put that much thought into acting like we were carrying 150 pounds of dead weight. You tend not to pay attention to details like that when you only have one line.
Dayz had been sitting in the audience watching our presentation. She actually liked our production (or was maybe being nice). I hung out with her that afternoon, watching some of the other plays. Unfortunately, Orld and this other guy decided to hang out with us as well. They also thought they had a shot with her. I was irritated that I met a very attractive girl who seemed to admire me and they were trying to shoehorn their way in without giving her any reason for liking them. She saw ME at Solo and Ensemble! She saw ME wearing a jacket with an All-State patch! She saw ME carry in the body and deliver that one line in the play! They weren't even in the plays we performed. All they did was show up and start talking to her while I was in the middle of a conversation.
That night, we went to see the Univeristy Theatre Department's production of "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds." I was familiar that there was a movie with that title, but didn't know it was a play. Once there, I located Dayz and sat with her. Orld and the other guy located us and also sat with us. More irritation.
The one stunning thing about the production was that the Theatre Department mounted it on a raked stage. I had never seen that before. It was hard to concentrate on the performances because I was completely bewildered as to how the actors were able to keep from rolling off into the audience.
Our Drama Club went back to our motel that night. We didn't do anything else but go to bed.
On Saturday, we woke up and drove down to Portales. The previous two days, we had eaten our breakfast and lunch at the University cafeteria, because the school was paying for that. This particular morning, we went to the cafeteria to find it closed. I said, "Oh, yeah! I thought it would be closed. UNM's cafeteria was closed on Saturday during All-State." My teacher got mad at me for not telling her that in the first place, but that wasn't really my fault. We ate breakfast at Tastee-Freez. I had an order of pancakes. When the waitress brought it to my table, I was surprised at how large the pancakes were. I said, "I'm going to need two plates for this!" Very soon after that, the waitress brought me an extra plate. I was only kidding about that!
There was a make-up workshop that morning that would teach how to create beards and mustaches. The person who taught the class was one of the professors in the Theatre Department. I volunteered to have him put a beard and mustache on me. It was incredible. It looked real. I walked around the rest of the day with that on my face. Everyone was surprised and shocked because up to that point, I'd never had any facial hair.
I also surprised Dayz. I spent the rest of the morning hanging around with her AND Orld AND the other guy watching the productions. I asked for her address so I could write her. They asked for her address, too.
We watched the final high school production of the festival. It was a good play, but close to the end, the lights just suddenly went out. At first we thought the play was over, but it wasn't. They got the lights back on, the performance resumed, and... the lights went out again. This happened three more times. It must have been very frustrating for the actors on the stage. I know that I would have just given up and walked off if that kept happening to me.
The Festival ended with a pizza party in the cafeteria. All the schools sat separately, which meant I didn't get to spend any more time with Dayz. But that wasn't the end of her story. I'll be writing more about her in future posts.
They handed out awards for actors and productions. There were three levels of awards: Superior, Excellent and Honorable Mention. The foreign exchange student got an Honorable Mention award for the play I was in. Rod and another student from our school got Honorable Mentions for the other play we did. I got nothing, but I can't really say that I was really expecting anything for my one line, no matter how brilliantly I recited it.
We drove home. I scared Mom and Loyd with my beard and mustache. I had to take it off because there was no way it would last until I got to school on Monday. The funny thing is that, even though I am almost 50 years old now, I have never been able to grow enough facial hair to make a beard and mustache anywhere near as good as the one that I had that day at the age of 15. And believe me, I've tried.
Monday, April 14, 2014
I act in a group, Part 1
After the Solo and Ensemble festival was over and done with (see my previous post), I had to gear up for the Drama Festival. It took place every year at Eastern New Mexico University. Our school prepared two one-act plays from our Evening of One Acts to enter for judging at the Festival. I was in one of the plays, but only had one line in it.
One thing that was usually made clear was that it was not a competition. There were no winners declared, just recognition of outstanding performances and productions. The odd thing was that most other schools only brought one production. The fact that we had two presentations didn't mean we had a superior department. It just meant that our school had enough money to enter two productions.
My father was asked to accompany us on the trip. He brought his pickup to load the set pieces and transport the students' luggage. Because he was a teacher, he had to drive one of the two vans we were taking. That left me to drive the pickup.
We left at 6am. Orld and another student got to ride with me. (We found out later this was in violation of school policy.) On the way up, the pickup kept breaking down and my Dad had to keep trying to fix it. Also, along the way, we saw a semi in front of us have a blowout and run off the left side of the highway. Orld, the other student and I pulled over to see if the driver was okay. He was, so we went back on our merry way. What was normally a 2 1/2-hour trip to Portales took us 6 hours. We were exhausted and hungry by the time we got there.
We got to see a few of the productions by the other high schools. The first thing that was apparent to me that while there were a few schools whose Drama departments were of the same caliber as us or worse, there were many others that were so much better. In particular, the schools from Albuquerque had performance levels I knew that we could not match even if we tried for a million years.
During the festival on Thursday, I was hanging out with a couple of the senior girls. One of them wanted to find something for the group to do that night. After going around to the dorms, she found that there was someplace in Clovis (where our motel was) that was having a roller disco night. (Yes, it was 1980 and there were still people in New Mexico still into disco.) She thought this sounded like fun and offered it up as something to do that night.
Some of us, including myself, chose to go to the roller disco. Others, like Orld, opted to go see a movie. We went to the roller rink. We go inside and IT'S ALL BLACK PEOPLE, like that scene in "Animal House." Keep in mind that in Artesia, there probably weren't more than eight black students in our school, and we never saw them all in the same place at the same time. This was a roller rink with at least 50 black people inside, so we didn't know what to expect.
As it turned out, it wasn't a big deal. They didn't seem to mind us being there. However, at one point, we saw a black man walk in with a white girlfriend. Nobody bothered them. The other guy who rode in the pickup with Orld and me said, "You know, I can see why a black man would want to be with a white woman, but I don't understand why a white woman would want to be with a black man." Boy, were we naive.
After the initial shock at the beginning of the evening, the only other time I got nervous was when the DJ had all the guys line up on the floor for "Ladies' Choice." I didn't know what I was going to do if one of the black girls decided to "choose" me. Fortunately, that didn't happen. However, I also didn't get "chosen" by any of the girls we had gone there with. I was a loser on both counts.
On that high note, I'm going to continue this in the next post.
One thing that was usually made clear was that it was not a competition. There were no winners declared, just recognition of outstanding performances and productions. The odd thing was that most other schools only brought one production. The fact that we had two presentations didn't mean we had a superior department. It just meant that our school had enough money to enter two productions.
My father was asked to accompany us on the trip. He brought his pickup to load the set pieces and transport the students' luggage. Because he was a teacher, he had to drive one of the two vans we were taking. That left me to drive the pickup.
We left at 6am. Orld and another student got to ride with me. (We found out later this was in violation of school policy.) On the way up, the pickup kept breaking down and my Dad had to keep trying to fix it. Also, along the way, we saw a semi in front of us have a blowout and run off the left side of the highway. Orld, the other student and I pulled over to see if the driver was okay. He was, so we went back on our merry way. What was normally a 2 1/2-hour trip to Portales took us 6 hours. We were exhausted and hungry by the time we got there.
We got to see a few of the productions by the other high schools. The first thing that was apparent to me that while there were a few schools whose Drama departments were of the same caliber as us or worse, there were many others that were so much better. In particular, the schools from Albuquerque had performance levels I knew that we could not match even if we tried for a million years.
During the festival on Thursday, I was hanging out with a couple of the senior girls. One of them wanted to find something for the group to do that night. After going around to the dorms, she found that there was someplace in Clovis (where our motel was) that was having a roller disco night. (Yes, it was 1980 and there were still people in New Mexico still into disco.) She thought this sounded like fun and offered it up as something to do that night.
Some of us, including myself, chose to go to the roller disco. Others, like Orld, opted to go see a movie. We went to the roller rink. We go inside and IT'S ALL BLACK PEOPLE, like that scene in "Animal House." Keep in mind that in Artesia, there probably weren't more than eight black students in our school, and we never saw them all in the same place at the same time. This was a roller rink with at least 50 black people inside, so we didn't know what to expect.
As it turned out, it wasn't a big deal. They didn't seem to mind us being there. However, at one point, we saw a black man walk in with a white girlfriend. Nobody bothered them. The other guy who rode in the pickup with Orld and me said, "You know, I can see why a black man would want to be with a white woman, but I don't understand why a white woman would want to be with a black man." Boy, were we naive.
After the initial shock at the beginning of the evening, the only other time I got nervous was when the DJ had all the guys line up on the floor for "Ladies' Choice." I didn't know what I was going to do if one of the black girls decided to "choose" me. Fortunately, that didn't happen. However, I also didn't get "chosen" by any of the girls we had gone there with. I was a loser on both counts.
On that high note, I'm going to continue this in the next post.
Friday, April 4, 2014
I sing solo
The spring semester of school is filled with all sorts of festivals, some of which we get out of school for, like I did in my last post. The regional Solo and Ensemble Festival, however, always took place on a Saturday. The festival gave those of us in choir a chance to show off our stuff to other people from other schools in our part of the state. We could each do a solo and participate in a couple of ensembles. Individual adjudicators would give us either a 1, 2 or 3. A 1 was the best rating and you got a medal. A 2 got you a certificate. I don't know what you got with a 3.
I had been able to paricipate in solo and ensemble festivals since I was in the seventh grade. That first year, the festival included the entire choir and the music teacher encouraged us to sing solos. I decided I didn't want to that year. I regretted that decision later.
In the eighth grade, I prepared a solo and my teacher predicted that I would get a 1. I sort of had a rival in choir that year. (He turned out to be one of the people who saw me get caught shoplifting.) This guy couldn't really sing. He did a solo. He was scheduled before me with a different adjudicator. While I was waiting to perform, he came up and told me excitedly that he had gotten a 1. I was surprised, but thought it added credence to the possibility that I would get a 1 as well.
I got up and performed my piece. I thought I did very well. A few minutes later, I found out I got a 2. WHAT? GET OUT OF HERE! How did the other guy get a 1 for a sloppy performance while I got a 2? It was later discovered that my adjudicator only gave out three 1's to students that day, out of at least 50 performances. One of those was a guy from our group who actually went on right before me. The other adjudicator was just handing out 1s left and right like free candy at a school yard.
The worst part about this was that the rival kept throwing that in my face, saying he was better than me. I was glad when he didn't return to the choir in high school.
I was so devastated by not getting the 1 that to this day, I still remember the name of the judge. I was tempted to actually publish her full name in this post, but after seeing that there's at least 40 other people out there with that same name, I decided against it. Besides, she's probably dead now.
At the very least, I thought I could redeem myself during the Solo and Ensemble Festival in ninth grade. However, I didn't get that chance. Despite rehearsing a solo, the festival was scheduled on one of the weekends of our school's spring break. School rules prevented students from being taken out of town while school was on break. I felt cheated again.
In the tenth grade, I was finally going to get to take part in the Solo and Ensemble Festival again. I was all pumped from my All-State experience. When I got up to do my piece, there were a lot of other students from other schools in the room. I could see them listening intently to my performance. It actually made me kind of nervous, but I got through the song and there was a lot of applause. One of the girls in the audience came up to me and told me I did really well. I would run into that girl again very soon. Stay tuned, she'll appear in future posts.
I had to sit and wait for the results to come in. When the sheet was posted, I saw that I got a 1. FINALLY! As it turned out, I was the only sophomore who got a 1. Yes, even Tad, the girl who was Ms. F's teacher's pet from the ninth grade, got a 2. I felt completely vindicated. (But do note that I didn't rub my 1 in her face. We also had different adjudicators.)
I also got 1s during the Solo and Ensemble Festivals for my junior and senior years. This made me the only senior who had gotten 1s all three years. Tad didn't get her first 1 until senior year. As nothing eventful took place the next two years, I don't need to go into detail about them later. However, I should mention that in my senior year, our teacher somehow arranged for all of us to be seen by the same judge. This meant that no one from any other schools saw me perform. There was no one new to impress. That was disappointing.
At the very least, getting the 1s made me feel like all the effort I had been putting into choir for the last few years was not a complete waste of time.
I had been able to paricipate in solo and ensemble festivals since I was in the seventh grade. That first year, the festival included the entire choir and the music teacher encouraged us to sing solos. I decided I didn't want to that year. I regretted that decision later.
In the eighth grade, I prepared a solo and my teacher predicted that I would get a 1. I sort of had a rival in choir that year. (He turned out to be one of the people who saw me get caught shoplifting.) This guy couldn't really sing. He did a solo. He was scheduled before me with a different adjudicator. While I was waiting to perform, he came up and told me excitedly that he had gotten a 1. I was surprised, but thought it added credence to the possibility that I would get a 1 as well.
I got up and performed my piece. I thought I did very well. A few minutes later, I found out I got a 2. WHAT? GET OUT OF HERE! How did the other guy get a 1 for a sloppy performance while I got a 2? It was later discovered that my adjudicator only gave out three 1's to students that day, out of at least 50 performances. One of those was a guy from our group who actually went on right before me. The other adjudicator was just handing out 1s left and right like free candy at a school yard.
The worst part about this was that the rival kept throwing that in my face, saying he was better than me. I was glad when he didn't return to the choir in high school.
I was so devastated by not getting the 1 that to this day, I still remember the name of the judge. I was tempted to actually publish her full name in this post, but after seeing that there's at least 40 other people out there with that same name, I decided against it. Besides, she's probably dead now.
At the very least, I thought I could redeem myself during the Solo and Ensemble Festival in ninth grade. However, I didn't get that chance. Despite rehearsing a solo, the festival was scheduled on one of the weekends of our school's spring break. School rules prevented students from being taken out of town while school was on break. I felt cheated again.
In the tenth grade, I was finally going to get to take part in the Solo and Ensemble Festival again. I was all pumped from my All-State experience. When I got up to do my piece, there were a lot of other students from other schools in the room. I could see them listening intently to my performance. It actually made me kind of nervous, but I got through the song and there was a lot of applause. One of the girls in the audience came up to me and told me I did really well. I would run into that girl again very soon. Stay tuned, she'll appear in future posts.
I had to sit and wait for the results to come in. When the sheet was posted, I saw that I got a 1. FINALLY! As it turned out, I was the only sophomore who got a 1. Yes, even Tad, the girl who was Ms. F's teacher's pet from the ninth grade, got a 2. I felt completely vindicated. (But do note that I didn't rub my 1 in her face. We also had different adjudicators.)
I also got 1s during the Solo and Ensemble Festivals for my junior and senior years. This made me the only senior who had gotten 1s all three years. Tad didn't get her first 1 until senior year. As nothing eventful took place the next two years, I don't need to go into detail about them later. However, I should mention that in my senior year, our teacher somehow arranged for all of us to be seen by the same judge. This meant that no one from any other schools saw me perform. There was no one new to impress. That was disappointing.
At the very least, getting the 1s made me feel like all the effort I had been putting into choir for the last few years was not a complete waste of time.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
All-State, here we come!
The first week back at school in 1980 following the Christmas break was a short one for me and a few other students. We were going to take part in the All-State music concerts in Popejoy Hall on the University of New Mexico campus in Albuquerque. All-State was comprised of high school students from across the state in various choirs, bands and orchestras. From our school, we had seven people from choir and three people from band. Out of the ten of us, only one had been to All-State before.
In the weeks prior to All-State, including over Christmas break, we in the choir had to rehearse and memorize the pieces of music we were going to perform. We had to do this under the threat of being sent home from Albuquerque. And the music teachers weren't even going to drive us back. They were just throw us under, uh, on the Greyhound bus.
We left Wednesday after school in the school's two vans. As usual, it took more than four hours to get to Albuquerque. (I've always said that no matter where you live in the State of New Mexico, it's a four-hour drive to Albuquerque. It seems like anytime I moved further north in the state, it still took four hours to get there.) I got stuck in the van with the teachers. It was not as fun a road trip as it could have been, but it was still exciting to get out of school for a few days.
We got to the hotel. As I mentioned, there were 10 of us students. Five were boys and five were girls. The cheap school district would not spring for four rooms for all the students, so we all had to stay in two rooms, with two double beds and a fold out each. Guess who had to sleep on the fold out in the boys' room.
We got up the next morning and ate breakfast at the hotel's restaurant. It was all on the school's tab. We could make up for them not getting us extra space. We ordered extra orange juice. Yeah, that'll show them.
We loaded up on the vans and went to UNM. The first thing we had to do was be evaluated on our knowledge of the material before being admitted. Again, we were warned that we would be sent home if we didn't pass. While we were waiting for our "auditions," I saw one girl come out in absolute tears. I got the idea they told her to go home. We had to go into a room with an adjudicator to sing a few segments of the pieces without looking at the sheet music. The pieces we were to perform were a combination of traditional classical music with some obscure and avant-garde material. I was fine on the traditional, but the other material we had a hard time learning because we weren't sure how they were supposed to sound. My adjudicator had me do all the avant-garde pieces. I did my best. When I was done, he said, "You just barely made it!" Everyone else in our group also got to stay.
From the original audition, there were supposed to be 320 students in the All-State choir. That would make 40 for each section. I found out later that 44 people had auditioned for the Bass II section, the one I was in. This meant that there were only four Bass II's who did not make the cut. No wonder I made it. (The next year, they cut the number of people in each part to 35. I did not make All-State my junior year.)
We all filed into this auditorium in the university's music building. We were given assigned seats and sat with our sections. This was the same building that housed Popejoy Hall. Above the stage was this massive pipe organ. After a short wait, our conductor appeared. He was the choir director from the University of Southern California. (Yes, I remember his name. I'm avoiding all real names in this blog, but I'm pretty certain you can look up the name of USC's choir director in 1980 on the Internet.) He was a very boisterous conductor who could always make us laugh.
He had us get out our sheet music for the first piece, which basically consisted of the lyric "allelujah" over and over. We started singing it LOUD! I was astonished at how it sounded with more than 300 people singing it together. The conductor acted like he was being pushed back by the volume, had us stop, and told us the correct level to sing the piece at. We started over.
We then ran through each piece in the order they would be performed. I was astonished at the sound coming from this choir and was enthalled to know that I was a part of it. We got to the avant-garde pieces. They made more sense once I could hear all the parts.
Then the conductor did something odd. He had us change our seats, so that we alternated Soprano, Tenor, Alto, Bass. The girl on my right appeared to be a senior and would not talk to me. She had short dark blonde hair and wasn't very attractive. Thankfully, the girl on my right had a bubbly personality and was easy to get along with. She was also a sophomore, had short, dark brown hair and was very cute. However, at this point, I wasn't looking to get together with someone with whom I would wind up a pen pal. I don't remember her name.
We rehearsed for six hours that day. We rehearsed for six hours the next day. By the end of Friday, I had all the pieces 100% memorized. Since we spent so much time rehearsing, the music was pretty much engraved in our heads. This was likely true for eveyone else in the choir. This made me think back to the "audition" we had to endure when we arrived. It made me wonder why those in charge were so keen on sending people home if we were just going to memorize it all over the course of 12 hours anyway. I shouldn't have been told that I "just barely made it," when the adjudicators knew full well that we were going to drill the music over and over until it became second nature.
The night before the concert, we were at the hotel room. At one point, one of the guys asked me to get a bucket of ice. I went out and got one and brought it back. He put it on the balcony. The next morning, while I was taking a shower, someone came in the bathroom and dumped a bucket of ice on me. It was the same ice I had fetched the night before. At least it wasn't caught on video and posted on YouTube.
We performed our pieces in front of a packed Popejoy Hall. The audience was mostly comprised of All-State participants. Everything was fine until we got to "Shenendoah." It was this amazing arrangement that started with just the men singing. However, a few seconds in, one of the girls started coughing. And she kept coughing for a full minute during the first section. And she would not leave the stage. Everybody wanted to murder her! Even worse was that the concerts were recorded to be put on record albums and they could do nothing to eliminate that coughing. It was permanent.
The concerts ended Saturday afternoon. Immediately afterward, we all got back on the vans for the long ride home. We were all worn out from three days of solid music. It was too bad that I wouldn't get to experience that again for another two years.
In the weeks prior to All-State, including over Christmas break, we in the choir had to rehearse and memorize the pieces of music we were going to perform. We had to do this under the threat of being sent home from Albuquerque. And the music teachers weren't even going to drive us back. They were just throw us under, uh, on the Greyhound bus.
We left Wednesday after school in the school's two vans. As usual, it took more than four hours to get to Albuquerque. (I've always said that no matter where you live in the State of New Mexico, it's a four-hour drive to Albuquerque. It seems like anytime I moved further north in the state, it still took four hours to get there.) I got stuck in the van with the teachers. It was not as fun a road trip as it could have been, but it was still exciting to get out of school for a few days.
We got to the hotel. As I mentioned, there were 10 of us students. Five were boys and five were girls. The cheap school district would not spring for four rooms for all the students, so we all had to stay in two rooms, with two double beds and a fold out each. Guess who had to sleep on the fold out in the boys' room.
We got up the next morning and ate breakfast at the hotel's restaurant. It was all on the school's tab. We could make up for them not getting us extra space. We ordered extra orange juice. Yeah, that'll show them.
We loaded up on the vans and went to UNM. The first thing we had to do was be evaluated on our knowledge of the material before being admitted. Again, we were warned that we would be sent home if we didn't pass. While we were waiting for our "auditions," I saw one girl come out in absolute tears. I got the idea they told her to go home. We had to go into a room with an adjudicator to sing a few segments of the pieces without looking at the sheet music. The pieces we were to perform were a combination of traditional classical music with some obscure and avant-garde material. I was fine on the traditional, but the other material we had a hard time learning because we weren't sure how they were supposed to sound. My adjudicator had me do all the avant-garde pieces. I did my best. When I was done, he said, "You just barely made it!" Everyone else in our group also got to stay.
From the original audition, there were supposed to be 320 students in the All-State choir. That would make 40 for each section. I found out later that 44 people had auditioned for the Bass II section, the one I was in. This meant that there were only four Bass II's who did not make the cut. No wonder I made it. (The next year, they cut the number of people in each part to 35. I did not make All-State my junior year.)
We all filed into this auditorium in the university's music building. We were given assigned seats and sat with our sections. This was the same building that housed Popejoy Hall. Above the stage was this massive pipe organ. After a short wait, our conductor appeared. He was the choir director from the University of Southern California. (Yes, I remember his name. I'm avoiding all real names in this blog, but I'm pretty certain you can look up the name of USC's choir director in 1980 on the Internet.) He was a very boisterous conductor who could always make us laugh.
He had us get out our sheet music for the first piece, which basically consisted of the lyric "allelujah" over and over. We started singing it LOUD! I was astonished at how it sounded with more than 300 people singing it together. The conductor acted like he was being pushed back by the volume, had us stop, and told us the correct level to sing the piece at. We started over.
We then ran through each piece in the order they would be performed. I was astonished at the sound coming from this choir and was enthalled to know that I was a part of it. We got to the avant-garde pieces. They made more sense once I could hear all the parts.
Then the conductor did something odd. He had us change our seats, so that we alternated Soprano, Tenor, Alto, Bass. The girl on my right appeared to be a senior and would not talk to me. She had short dark blonde hair and wasn't very attractive. Thankfully, the girl on my right had a bubbly personality and was easy to get along with. She was also a sophomore, had short, dark brown hair and was very cute. However, at this point, I wasn't looking to get together with someone with whom I would wind up a pen pal. I don't remember her name.
We rehearsed for six hours that day. We rehearsed for six hours the next day. By the end of Friday, I had all the pieces 100% memorized. Since we spent so much time rehearsing, the music was pretty much engraved in our heads. This was likely true for eveyone else in the choir. This made me think back to the "audition" we had to endure when we arrived. It made me wonder why those in charge were so keen on sending people home if we were just going to memorize it all over the course of 12 hours anyway. I shouldn't have been told that I "just barely made it," when the adjudicators knew full well that we were going to drill the music over and over until it became second nature.
The night before the concert, we were at the hotel room. At one point, one of the guys asked me to get a bucket of ice. I went out and got one and brought it back. He put it on the balcony. The next morning, while I was taking a shower, someone came in the bathroom and dumped a bucket of ice on me. It was the same ice I had fetched the night before. At least it wasn't caught on video and posted on YouTube.
We performed our pieces in front of a packed Popejoy Hall. The audience was mostly comprised of All-State participants. Everything was fine until we got to "Shenendoah." It was this amazing arrangement that started with just the men singing. However, a few seconds in, one of the girls started coughing. And she kept coughing for a full minute during the first section. And she would not leave the stage. Everybody wanted to murder her! Even worse was that the concerts were recorded to be put on record albums and they could do nothing to eliminate that coughing. It was permanent.
The concerts ended Saturday afternoon. Immediately afterward, we all got back on the vans for the long ride home. We were all worn out from three days of solid music. It was too bad that I wouldn't get to experience that again for another two years.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
One Chruddy Christmas and the Last Day of the 70s
The first Christmas after the breakup was really rough. (I'm not going to mention her name in this post. She's already been the star of eight consecutive posts and made a cameo this week. With the exception of one more appearance in the future, I resolve not to write her name, or the version of her name that I am using for the purposes of the blog.) I hated that I missed getting to spend some part of the Christmas season with someone special and had actually been looking forward to buying her a present.
As usual, we spent Christmas Eve at Grandma Bend's house, but this year was going to be different. Toward the end of Christmas Day, we were going to drive to Missouri to see where my Aunt Cind and her husband Jid lived. The night before we left for Grandma Bend's, Mom had Dad, Loyd and me open the presents we were giving each other. Mom didn't explain why we were doing a really early Christmas that year. I didn't really think about it. We had a good time opening presents. I remember getting a couple of records that I had requested.
We got to Grandma Bend's for the traditional Christmas Eve. It was the first time we got to see Cind and Jid after they got married. Seeing them together reminded me that I had no one in my life to spend the special occasion with.
We started opening presents. After awhile, I noticed I hadn't gotten very many gifts. It took me awhile to figure out that we had opened up a bunch of presents the night before and that's why I didn't get much. I only remember getting a caddy for my car. Apparently, we wanted to keep our carload light for the trip the Missouri.
We went to Missouri and came back. It wasn't a big deal, except that Cind and Jid didn't have a shower and with my long hair at the time, I couldn't stand to try to wash it in a bathtub or sink. I was glad to get home to normal running water from the wall.
As terrible as Christmas was, my spirits were boosted by New Year's Eve. I was aware for the first time that we were about to change decades. Even though I lived through the last decade change, I didn't know it was happening, even though my first unenhanced memory was from Christmas of 1969. (I don't even remember New Year's Eve that year. I probably just had to go to bed early.)
We went to Aund Pand and Uncle Rid's house. We had been there the year before and had a blast. A few months prior to December 1979, Loyd and I put our parents on the spot when Pand and her family were around and asked if we could spend New Year's with them again. Loyd and I hung out with our cousin Grid waiting for midnight. We played games, listened to the radio and watched TV. We did not sneak out of the house (we were again in the middle of nowhere), get drunk or get arrested. But it was still a very eventful New Year's Eve.
A few years ago, I watched the final episode of "That 70s Show." It ends with the cast running up the stairs from the basement during the final few seconds of the 70s. I was able to watch that and recall where I was when that happened.
Since then, I've gone through three other decade changes. The end of the 80s had me leaving my workplace at 11:45pm to be by myself at home. The end of the 90s was spent at my girlfriend's house watching "ABC 2000." I don't really remember the end of the 00s. I guess it didn't seem like a decade change at the time. It's like the 00s and the 10s just merged into one really long decade.
However, I knew the 80s would be huge for me, but I didn't realize the scope of what they would entail. During that decade, I would spend the majority of my high school years, graduate, attend college, get my Bachelor's degree, get my first full-time job, quit it in a huff, move to Denver, and come close to getting married for the first time. That's a lot to have happen in a ten-year span.
I've got plenty to write about on this blog.
As usual, we spent Christmas Eve at Grandma Bend's house, but this year was going to be different. Toward the end of Christmas Day, we were going to drive to Missouri to see where my Aunt Cind and her husband Jid lived. The night before we left for Grandma Bend's, Mom had Dad, Loyd and me open the presents we were giving each other. Mom didn't explain why we were doing a really early Christmas that year. I didn't really think about it. We had a good time opening presents. I remember getting a couple of records that I had requested.
We got to Grandma Bend's for the traditional Christmas Eve. It was the first time we got to see Cind and Jid after they got married. Seeing them together reminded me that I had no one in my life to spend the special occasion with.
We started opening presents. After awhile, I noticed I hadn't gotten very many gifts. It took me awhile to figure out that we had opened up a bunch of presents the night before and that's why I didn't get much. I only remember getting a caddy for my car. Apparently, we wanted to keep our carload light for the trip the Missouri.
We went to Missouri and came back. It wasn't a big deal, except that Cind and Jid didn't have a shower and with my long hair at the time, I couldn't stand to try to wash it in a bathtub or sink. I was glad to get home to normal running water from the wall.
As terrible as Christmas was, my spirits were boosted by New Year's Eve. I was aware for the first time that we were about to change decades. Even though I lived through the last decade change, I didn't know it was happening, even though my first unenhanced memory was from Christmas of 1969. (I don't even remember New Year's Eve that year. I probably just had to go to bed early.)
We went to Aund Pand and Uncle Rid's house. We had been there the year before and had a blast. A few months prior to December 1979, Loyd and I put our parents on the spot when Pand and her family were around and asked if we could spend New Year's with them again. Loyd and I hung out with our cousin Grid waiting for midnight. We played games, listened to the radio and watched TV. We did not sneak out of the house (we were again in the middle of nowhere), get drunk or get arrested. But it was still a very eventful New Year's Eve.
A few years ago, I watched the final episode of "That 70s Show." It ends with the cast running up the stairs from the basement during the final few seconds of the 70s. I was able to watch that and recall where I was when that happened.
Since then, I've gone through three other decade changes. The end of the 80s had me leaving my workplace at 11:45pm to be by myself at home. The end of the 90s was spent at my girlfriend's house watching "ABC 2000." I don't really remember the end of the 00s. I guess it didn't seem like a decade change at the time. It's like the 00s and the 10s just merged into one really long decade.
However, I knew the 80s would be huge for me, but I didn't realize the scope of what they would entail. During that decade, I would spend the majority of my high school years, graduate, attend college, get my Bachelor's degree, get my first full-time job, quit it in a huff, move to Denver, and come close to getting married for the first time. That's a lot to have happen in a ten-year span.
I've got plenty to write about on this blog.
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