WTnotthebadFword Wednesdays: FAME!

This, kids, is my lunch box from first grade. As you can see, it features Cocoa, Leroy, the teacher played by Debbie Allen and the whole Fame Gang. I proudly carried this lunch box as an expression of who I was as a six-year-old, just struggling along, waiting for my big break on Broadway, trying to rise above the gritty streets by devoting myself to my craft.

Or, you know, as a white kid in some homemade knickers and mongrammed sweater, going to a Christian school in Paragould, AR.

Along about the 4th grade, I was in a talent contest at the fair. Well, I should clarify that this was actually the Northeast Arkansas District Fair, not just some piddly county fair, and, for further clarification, it was a preliminary competition for the Mid-South Fair. For this big moment (my big break?!?), no other song but "Fame" would do. So there I was, in the sweltering September heat, wearing a tuxedo shirt, red sequin bowtie and cummerbund, and some lycra pants on which my Mom had sewed a red sequin stripe all the way down the side of both legs. Oh, and my hair in a side ponytail with a sequin scrunchy---because how else would I wear my hair when I am up there belting out, "Baby, remember my name" (remembah, remembah)?

I am rather on a roll of self-disclosure here, so I will go ahead and tell this part, too: There comes a point in the song (karaoke tape) that is the height of 80's synthesized musical breaks...and being a gal who does not like to waste a moment on stage, I decide that this is the perfect opportunity for me to show off some of my other skills, namely, doing a back handspring, followed by a toe-touch. Oh, yes I did. And then I ran back to pick up the mic off the floor and close with a rousing, one-step-higher-for-effect chorus. Remembah, remembah...Fame! (aaaaaaaaaand....jazz hands!)

I am pretty sure that my mom went to bed that night wondering why she had been stuck with the most ridiculous child on the face of the earth.