Beacon

 I have always been writing something.  Even in high school I was writing these little humorous pieces that sometimes got into the school newspaper.  In college I took narrative writing courses.  I can't say I actually learned anything there, like stuff you could put on a test, but it got you to write and to read what other people had written and to discuss it among yourselves, and that's about as good it gets for a writer.

It seems hard to believe but all those stories were handwritten.  What a chore it must have been for the teacher to read all those pages of script, but that's the way it was in those days,

Then on a visit to my folks I saw that they had an old portable typewriter which they gave me and I got a book out of the library and I taught myself to type with all my fingers.  Most of my life I have been pretty lazy and I am proud of that little moment of get up and go that I had.  

I like to talk.  I like to hear the sound of my own voice.  I like the way I can just turn on the spigot. and I like to hear what comes out.

Writing is a little different.  It is more formal, you have to type it and you are aware of things like punctuation and paragraphs, and you just have to pay more attention to what you are saying, you have to say it better and it has to make sense.  

Most people don't write.  That kid in fourth grade who is talking a blue streak to all his buddies and disrupting the class, put a paper and pencil in front of him and ask him to write what he did over the weekend or anything at all, anything off the top of his head and he has nothing, absolutely zero to say.  Most people are like that.  I don't know why.

As Beagles has noted I have a ton of this shit.  I was looking through my archives last night and I saw stories that I have forgotten about.  Here is a little short one.

 When the lights go down the curtains stay closed and then the music begins and grows louder, and then you hear the soft shoes, slow at first, but then growing faster.  The curtain opens and there is Mary O'Connor, "The best little hoofer to ever come out of Beacon High," as the music teacher, Mr Cahalan, likes to say.

 She is wearing a peppermint striped little jacket, and a rakish boater, and she has a cane as a prop.  She gets to have her solo here and she hoofs up a storm.  And then I come out of the wings, kind of drifting towards her at centerstage, an easy loping rhythmic stride, and I begin to sing:

 "Are you from Beacon?

Are you from Beacon?"

 She cups her little pink shell of an ear in my direction as I drift into my position beside her.

 "The Illinois River.

The verdant farmland."

 This is directed more towards the audience than at Mary, and then I take a deep breath so I can sing out that last line loud and proud.

 "Beacon U S A."

 Then a little silence with just the sounds of our hooves, I guess to give the viewers who have dropped their programs in all the excitement a chance to retrieve them.

 And then little Mary's bell-like chime:

 "Yes I'm from Beacon.

Yes I'm from Beacon."

 Probably it is just me that notices how for the next two lines she goes more distant, bored, almost sarcastic.

 "The Illinois River.

The verdant farmland."

 But she has to tone it all the way up for the next line.

 "Beacon U S A."

 And then we do one of those dosey doe things, linking our arms and dancing in a circle.

 "Oh we're from Beacon,

Oh we're from Beacon.

The Illinois River,

The verdant farmlands.

Beacon U S A."

 I wrap my arm around her waist then, which strictly speaking isn't part of Mr Cahalan's directions, but Mary doesn't mind, not at all.

 And then just after the U S A part, this other couple, kind of dance wander onto the stage, and Mary and I sing out to them:

 "Are you from Beacon?

Are you from Beacon?"

 And then the whole thing again, ending up with the four of us in kind of a pinwheel at the end.

 And then two more couples coming on, and after that four more, which is really too many, because the first two are pretty good, but the next four are not so hot and they really can't dance at all.  It is all they can do just to run to keep in place at the end of the pinwheel.  And when it comes time to sing towards the audience they are all gasping, but anyway we all sing low, just so that we can hear Mary's voice ring out.

 "Are you from Beacon?

Are you from Beacon?"

etc.

 The first two rows are taken by our classmates who return the favor:

 "Yes we're from Beacon

Yes we're form Beacon."

etc.

 And then together:

 "Oh we're from Beacon

Oh we're from Beacon."

etc.

 And then the first two rows of the audience turn back towards the rest of the audience and etc, and etc, and etc.

 And then, and then, and then, it goes on and on, just repeating itself, over and over, way more times than you would have thought were possible.

 I was a pretty good dancer.  It was just something I could do, like some guys can do those yo-yo tricks.  I didn't live to dance or anything like that.  But I was okay with it when Mr Cahalan wanted me to be in his annual Beacon Blast.  If I had known that I would end up in that peppermint coat, boater, and cane, singing that song over and over I never would have done it, but then when I heard that Mary O'Connor would be dancing next to me, I guess I would have done it even knowing how it was going to turn out.  Anyway I did it.

 I never got any further with Mary O’Connor than that arm around her waist.  She had a jerk of a boyfriend who got her pregnant and then they moved somewhere.  It's been over fifteen years now since I knocked the Beacon off my boots, and some things have turned out really well for me, and somethings have turned out very badly, but wherever I go and whatever I do, I will always know:

 I'm from Beacon.