SHAKE A LEG

There’s a new comedy on Fox network tonight that I want to catch. It’s called “Glee,” and it’s about a bunch of misfits who reluctantly make up a high school chorus. Sort of the antithesis to the old show “Fame,” I suspect.

I’m interested in seeing “Glee” because back in the day, as we old timers say, I was a second soprano in the Fredonia High School mixed chorus, as it was called. Thrown in with a group of 60 or so kids, I was a loudmouth, enthusiastic singer. So much so that our director decided I should do solos and be in a girls trio. My lack of confidence put an immediate nix on the solo singing, but I went ahead and agreed to be in the trio--mainly because the girls who sang soprano and alto (Susie and Teresa, a year younger than I) had fabulous voices and my mediocre one would just get lost in between theirs--at least that was my plan.

So, my sophomore year our teacher teamed us up, our moms made us look-alike outfits, and we sang everywhere--for smiling, polite ladies at the Methodist Church, for bored old men at the Lions Club, and for secretive, be-fezzed types at the Masons, where we were stashed in a secret room before our performance and then brought into this huge decorated, incensed auditorium. “Geesh! I never knew this was above Thomas Jeweler’s!”

The whole point in having us do all these music gigs in Fredonia and surrounding territory, even the Greenwood County Fair in Eureka, where we got $20.00 second place money to buy material for our costumes, was to get experience so that we wouldn’t suffer from stage fright when it came to competing at the State Music Festival in the spring. It was okay to muff some words in front of the friendly Kiwanis group, but god forbid if we made a slip at State!!!

In theory it was a great idea. In reality it worked fine with the lovely Susie and Teresa, but I was a hopeless case. Come the day of State, my stomach was a mess--maybe because I knew I was the weakest singing link of the 2/3 talented trio. We had to sing two songs--fancy stuff, of course; nothing your run-of-the-mill audience would know, but the three judges were savvy to every note and word. Before we even got to the stage, I was already anticipating the critiques: “Too bad your second soprano isn’t as strong as the soprano and alto.” Aaaggghhh!!!!

Well, somehow I survived the performance and somehow we got a I rating, but here’s what I remember most about State: my nervous knees were knocking to the beat of the music. Not just a little tremor now and then--serious, continuous shaking that I had no control over which to stop. I honestly thought I was going to collapse into a big ball of stage fright. I was never this way with the Fredonia Hospital Auxiliary. Why was this happening now?

The first song was slow, so the quivering wasn’t likely as noticeable, but the second number was allegro…presto…vivace all the way!! My knees were in overdrive! It wasn’t just my imagination, either. Afterwards, my friends in the audience made sure to tell me just how pathetic I looked. That’s what friends are for, you know.

The following year, I did okay at State with the trio. I was no longer a rookie, and the teacher had increased our number of civic performances for even more experience. By the time I graduated, I suspect everyone in town had sat through our shows so many times that they knew the words to all our songs by heart.

So, when I sit down in front of the TV tonight and tune in to “Glee,” it will be with terror-filled memories and with glee in my heart--that try-outs aren’t required to watch it.