Kids

I was forwarded an article today that caught my attention. It was about teenagers in Fulton, MO (home state of the Warbler - Fulton's not that close, though, to my home city) who did a production of Grease and upset some bible thumping parents who found the subject matter too risque. Yeah, we wouldn't want to think that kids these days drink, smoke, sneak out and obsess about sex and cars. So they cancelled the Spring Production of 'The Crucible' - about witchhunts and McCarthy-ism set in the Salem Witch Trial Days (for those of you living under a rock) and supported, instead, a production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream" about - let's see if I can paraphrase what the article said - magic, paganism, beastiality, etc. The article was written by a former theatre weenie who seemed to have turned out quite okay, as well as their co-horts, despite doing such plays as 'The Crucible' and 'Grease'.

Now, for the other rock dwellers amongst you, I was a high school theatre weenie. (What a great name for a B movie)I hung with high school theatre weenies. We were a large, formidable but sincerely nice group of kids. The few posts of the last couple of days concerning teen-agers has encouraged me to share with you what my little group of friends was like.

For the most part, in my fairly large high school (I graduated #204 out of 408 seniors - how incredibly 50% of me), the two largest cliques were the Jocks and the Thespians - don't bother with the jokes, we know them all. (In fact, the Gupta brothers probably told them all as The Two Unknown Comics at our Talent Shows. They were soooo bad and we loved them! They're now doctors.) The Jocks were known for their heavy-handed partying. The Thespians, for the most part, were anything but. Most of us were everything you'd consider mid-western, middle-classed kids to be. We had all the same acne and angst as the average teen-ager, and we probably weren't the safest drivers around, but we didn't drink (just a few and they were the techies), we didn't smoke (it ruined our voices), we definitely didn't do drugs (hell, Janis Doty's rum balls were considered a big deal one Christmas) and most of us couldn't get a date much less have sex. And we liked it just fine. We were too busy having fun. High School was a great time for us. We put on shows, we talked about putting on shows, we practiced for the next show, we hung out and made music, we played miniature golf, went to movies like 'Fame' and sat awestruck, went to theatre camp in Muncie, Indiana, we bowled, we t.p.d each other's houses and went to clean up the next day. My personal little group consisted of Renee, Kathy, me, the brothers Erik and Mike, with an occasional Todd thrown in. I spent several days on Lake Jacomo in a 14 foot sailboat that spent more time upside down than otherwise - ON PURPOSE. The brothers were both Eagle Scouts. The three girls were always jockeying for who had a crush on which brother that week. We attended the KC Rennaissance Festival with other friends - several of whom spent a lot of falls working there, one even still does (check out The Jolly Rogers with Chivalry Music). Sure, we had the occasional argument with our parents - me more than most. We backed each other up, we loved each other as human beings, we supported whatever someone in our group was doing. We were good kids. And we were proud of being good kids.

Teen-agers, by definition, are a little more chaotic and angst-ridden than the rest of us. Except for toddler-hood, there is no time more tumultuous and confusing. But in this world, in this country, there are so many good kids who are amazing people. They work hard, they volunteer, they have a clue about life, the world and their place in it. They know they want to be somebody, even if that somebody leads a very small life. Not all teen-agers drink, smoke, drive drunk, smoke pot, hang out on street corners and parking lots (although Patrick Walker and I used to love to spontaneously waltz in them), have sex in the backseat (or any other seat, for that matter), scream and have fits at their parents (more than a few times), and in general give teen-agers a bad name. And a great many of them, like we did back then, are having a lot of fun being good people.

I did do a production of 'Once Upon A Mattress' where we had to take out Lady Larkin's line 'I'm pregnant' and just insinuate it. I don't recall anybody rushing out to have sex after that show. Although, after 'Brigadoon' I did have a great urge to eat shortbread cookies and dance daintily over crossed swords.