The Hobbit

INTERMISSION

Due to the graphic content of this next section, parts where left out

..........Left the door shut, the lights out, the shades drawn.  In the distance, Taps was playing on some lonely trumpet.

            I was in a play once.  Sixth grade and the play was “The Hobbit”.

            If you have ever read the book or seen the movie, you will of course remember the three trolls that capture Bilbo Baggins (the Hobbit) at some point in his journey.  I was one of the trolls.

I will have to get the book again and find out all of the names of the trolls but I do remember that I was Bert.  Lance Lindo played the other guy troll and Vickie Thompson played the girl troll.  Ohhh Vickie, Vickie, Vickie.  Another bump girl.  Eric played the hobbit.

            During one scene, us trolls get in a fight about how were going to eat ol’ Bilbo.  While we were doing our masterful choreography of punches, rolls, and ducks, Lance’s part had him falling to the floor on his back.  Myself and bumps girl grab Lance like were going to hit him and then with all three of us in sort of awkward lunging, standing, positions, we freeze so the lights can fade to black and the curtain closes.

            This was all going perfectly to schedule until the light fade.  You know how the stages in elementary schools are usually made out of really nice hardwood flooring? At least they used to be.  In addition, you know how the stage was usually hollow underneath for storage of the foursquare balls, parachutes, chairs, and other cool stuff?.  The problem with the hollowness and the flooring is that it echoes and reverberates when you walk on it. 

            OK, so here we are acting our best, we fall, we lunge, we freeze, and then we go silent with fade.  Problem is, about that time when the audience and the auditorium is silent...Lance farts. 

Do you know what a fart sound like when your butt is being pressed on by two people and you’re against that hollow wooden stage floor?  Thunder...loud, reverberating, echoing, last for an eternity thunder.  Could the lights have faded any slower?  Add to that the muffled snorting and gagging of three sixth graders and there you have it.  Our big debue with Lances fart being heard by at least twenty bazillion parents.

            It was during the play and working with Lance that I learned that he played the guitar.  Mom put Julie and me into guitar lessons for several years before this but all I had learned was the parts of the guitar and some finger positions...no real cool stuff.  We took the lessons at “Johnny Smith’s Guitar Centre” and my teacher was Mel Bay.  At the time, I didn’t know who that was except that he was the guy who taught guitar.  Look him up if you don’t know who he is.

Anyway, mom and dad had bought the guitars for the class and mine was now sitting in the closet at home...so was Julie's...both Gibson's.  After watching Lance play actual chords on his guitar one day, I decided that I would give that a try.

            I pulled out one of the old guitar lesson books and found some chord charts in the back.  After a few weeks, I was getting pretty good if I do say so myself.  Lance and I starting hangin’ together at school with the guitars and we learned to play “House of the Rising Sun”...COOL!.

            Well, Mrs. Waterson (my English teacher) found out that we could play.  Somehow, we were picked to play the guitar for the schools Thanksgiving show at school.  This was...how you say...Awesome!.   While everyone else had to stand on the stage in rows, Lance and I got to sit in chairs down in front of the stage and play the songs.  ANOTHER FIRST!.  I was a star (in my own mind).  Just a note, About the time I was seventeen we had a garage sale and I sold both of those guitars for ten dollars each and an eight track stereo for the car...can you say Dork!.

            At one point in the school year, each class got to go on a weeklong trip to “High Trails”.  This was a camp up in the mountains a few hours away.  This was a big deal because for one thing, you got to get out of school for a week.  You did however have to do school things at camp.  Since our class was so big, we had to split into two groups.  Group 1 left for a week while group two stayed behind.  Then we switched.  I got to go on the second week.

            I am certain that this trip to High Trails was the beginning of realizing that I loved the mountains and had to live in the mountains.  This was the perfect place to be. There were cabins that held twenty kids and a counselor, horses, a mess hall for eating, a teepee with the “Council ring” in front, trees, rivers, and the best part was a fifty-five gallon drum that was converted into a fireplace that sat right in the middle of each cabin that you used for heating the place.  No fire hazard here!

            At night, the counselor would get that baby cookin’ to where that thing glowed.  If you put your tennis shoes against it, you could write your name on it in melted rubber.  The best thing though was when you put pennies on top of the drum and they would melt after time...so cool.

            Ah yes, and who could forget the nightly raids on other cabins.  The chief bean of the camp told us all these scary stories about running around at night outside with bears and Indian ghosts Etc.  It worked for most kids, but not us.  You know how dark it is in the mountains at night.  It’s hard to see anything when you look out of the window of the cabin.  There were lots of windows to, and all about top bunk height.  We would run around quiet like to the next cabin with our cameras and flashbulbs.  After scratching oh so scary like on the building and windows, someone would just have to look out a window to see what that spooky noise was.  That’s when you blast em’ with a flash from the bulb!  Not only would the kid inside be instantly blinded for life and more, but you would be to if you were dumb enough not to shut yours eyes to before firing.  You cannot see. I’m sorry but your blind...hello?  The kid inside might be blind but he’s safe inside!  I’m out there with the Indian ghosts and bears trying to find my way back to safety.  I can stub my toe on hair lint too let alone rocks, twigs, corners of cabins, porches of cabins, doors of cabins, and beds in the cabins.  Man that was living.

            I could have stayed there forever until I got a letter from a girl in school.  She was in the first group that went.  She wrote me about how wonderful her time was but that it could have been better if I had been there with her...Hello!  I received a letter a day filled with her desires for my hot bod and her longing for me to come back now that the trip had opened her eyes to her feelings for me...another Hello!  She said that she would meet me at the bus when we came in on Friday and that she would be wearing the blue dress.  Oh baby I had to get back.

All week I thought about who this girl could be.  I had to burn the steamy letters in the bonfires at night they were so good.

            Finally, the day had come...Friday.  I almost wanted to hurl I was so tensed up when we pulled up in the school parking lot.  I played it cool and waited until almost last to get off the bus.  When I stepped out, I other kids, Eric, Kurt, Etc. However, no blue dress.  I looked and looked, but nothing.  Eric and Kurt came over and asked if I was lost cuz I was looking so hard.  I of course couldn’t tell them what was going on.  I was looking for the girl of my dreams after all.

            Pretty soon though, their laughing was getting a bit too loud to handle so I asked them what was so funny.  They asked me if I had gotten any “letters” in camp from anybody while I was there.

Can you say LOSER...I bet you can