Sing a Little Ditty

When asked if they sing, people often quip, “Only in the bathroom.”  They usually don’t intend the remark to be taken literally, but when I was a child, it was my favorite performance venue.  I suppose the tiled floor and walls, allowing my voice to echo wildly through the air was simply too much to resist.  Oh, yes… I forgot to mention, the bathroom of which I speak was not the one in my home.  These were public restrooms, usually in restaurants. 

After enjoying a peaceful and delicious meal with my mom, and sometimes other family members, I would always find an excuse to make my way into the restroom before we left. 

 Curtain up!

Out would pour songs from 1970s top forty radio, country western, and even a little pop and rock.  But my favorite song, by far, was “Tomorrow” from the Broadway musical, Annie.  It didn’t seem to matter to me that there were people constantly invading my concert hall to pee.  I joyously continued my one-man concert, despite odd stares or rude comments.  On occasion, I would even receive a bit of applause for my effort. 

The only problem with my artistic endeavor was that the entire restaurant could hear me, including my mortified mother.  As my performance continued to rock the house, my mother would have to slink back to the men’s restroom, amid stares and uncomfortable smiles and try to figure out how to get me to shut-up without invading the porcelain palace.  Occasionally, she would have to ask a gentleman leaving the restroom to go back inside and tell me, “Your mother would really like for you to stop singing.”  Then, I would hear my mother’s voice call from outside the restroom door, “And wash your hands!”  

On one particular restaurant outing, my mother was making her way back to our booth after another impromptu concert, when the lady in the next booth chimed up, attempting to lessen the sting of humiliation by saying, “He has a lovely voice.” 

Imagine, I now sing for a living.  But then again, I had lots of practice.

Way Ouside the Box

Albert Einstein once said, “If, at first, an idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it.”  If that’s true, then I must be one of the most absurd people on the planet.  My entire life has been filled with ideas and experiments that would make even Willy Wonka grab for his security blanket… or perhaps his 401k.  For me, however, this has just been my normal, day-to-day existence. 

 I’ve never been the type to think, “I’m going to go to college, get my degree, and get a job in… (insert your favorite industry here).  That’s not to say I haven’t tried college – I have, and I found it so stifling that I almost pulled my eyeballs out… all four times!  I have always been a critical thinker, a busy-body who continually questions the status quo, and most college people don’t like that.  “Fitting in” has never been my style, nor my desire, for that matter.  

Now, please don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not saying that I purposely rail against the establishment just for the sake of being different.  I’m saying that I am physically, mentally, and emotionally unable to align myself with what everyone else is doing, simply because it’s what everyone else is doing.  It’s like asking a cat to bark… it can’t happen. 

I have traveled some fairly bumpy roads as a result of my thinking way outside the box.  I have lost jobs, burned bridges, and even lost a dear friend in the process.  But somewhere deep inside, I have to believe that God put this quality in me for a reason.  Thinking and dreaming in starkly unique ways is just what I do.  It’s who I am… and I’m okay with that.

A Friend and a Half

A couple of years after we moved into the new house in Temple City, a boy who was a year older than me moved in across the street, right next door to the Jelly Belly man. I can’t quite remember, anymore, how we met, but when we did, we became fast friends.

His name… was Joey. Joey was unique in that he seemed to defy normal behavior standards and could be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reason with; at least this was my eight year-old impression of Joey. It would many years before l learned that Joey had severe ADHD. But despite the fact that Joey and I could have some real knock-down drag-out fights, he was still my friend for whom I would do almost anything.

 When Joey was told not to do something, especially by his mother, it seemed as though it were a challenge that had to be accepted. I remember one day, in particular, when his mother was baby sitting a friend’s toddler, whom she had just put down for a nap. Joey and I were playing cards in his living room when his mother came to us and said, “I need you to be very quiet, I just put the baby down for a nap.” You can probably guess what happened next… yep, the gauntlet had been thrown down; the die had been cast. Incidentally, Joey’s last words before any punishment from his mother were almost always, “Hey, watch this!”

As his mother left for the back yard, Joey stealthily crept into the baby’s room and began dangling things above his crib while I watched in horror, not knowing what to do. If I sat by and did nothing, Joey would wake the baby, guaranteed. If I called to him to stop, I would be the one to wake the baby and incur his mother’s wrath. As Joey dangled his yo-yo over the baby’s head, pretending to hypnotize the child, while looking at me and laughing, the unthinkable happened. At least it was unthinkable to Joey. To me, it was just the next logical event. The string came loose and the yo-yo smacked the baby square in the forehead, waking him up and sending him into a loud, and very attention-grabbing, crying fit.

In his attempt to cover up his crime, Joey snatched the yo-yo from the crib, threw it into his bedroom, came running out to the living room, and sat down next to me as if nothing had happened. His mother, however, wasn’t buying any of it. Flying in from the back yard, she passed through the living room, grabbed Joey by the arm without even slowing down, and dragged him into his room as he begged for mercy. She turned and looked at me just long enough to say, “Joey can’t play anymore,” before slamming his bedroom door shut.

There would be many more days like this.

My Imagination and Me

For as long as I can remember… probably even longer, I have had an insatiable thirst for creative expression. The happiest and most satisfying times in my life have always been when my imagination was running amok. When my mind goes into creative mode, everything around me ceases to exist. Unfortunately, this has not always made me a good candidate for taking care of the real-life issues that pop-up every now and again, like taking out the garbage, and feeding the dog. No one knows this better than my mother, who has most often been on the receiving end of my imagination blackouts. But luckily, for me, my mom saw that spark (or forest fire) of imagination in me and allowed me to create and explore at levels not seen since the building of the Roman Empire.

All of my teachers had regular run-ins with my imagination as well. Oddly enough, I always earned good grades, but if you were to pick up any of my old report cards from elementary school, you would see comments from my teachers on one consistent theme, “He is a daydreamer.”

If you’ll allow me, I would like to share with you, some of my life experiences, as seen through the lens of my wild, wonderful, frustrating, sometimes stroke-inducing, unbridled imagination.