I dedicate this site to my mother. She was a columnist and an author with the uncanny ability to find humor in the daily ins and outs of life. She faced every challenge with a witty optimism, including the cancer that ended her life too soon.
This year April Fools' Day falls on Easter. That seems like it could be funny. Enjoy this re-post from two years ago.
I
have never been a huge fan of April Fools' Day. For one thing, I don't
want to be exposed as gullible. (I have snopes.com bookmarked on every
device I own.) For another thing, I'm not a creative prankster.
On
the morning of April Fools' Day this year, I was driving to work, and I
happened to glance in my rear view mirror. I was being followed by a
woman driving a hearse. A casket was in the back, and a skeleton sat on
the passenger side. I'm not kidding. A smiling skeleton with one hand
suspended in the air sat on the passenger side. It was the strangest
sight. April Fools' Day joke or daily routine? I have no idea. Keep
Boise weird, folks.
During my first year of teaching on
April 1st, the principal announced over the intercom that we were going
to have a "flood drill."
"Everybody grab a chair and stand on it until I give the signal!"
Then
she walked around the building to see which classrooms were following
her instructions. No comment on whether or not I participated. (Keep in
mind, I was a first year teacher. I had no idea what kind of crazy
emergency procedures the District had established, and I didn't want to
get fired.)
I am not a prankster. Even after a dirty trick like that, I couldn't come up with a decent revenge plot.
I get a lot of advice from my students though.
"You
should put a rubber band around the spray nozzle on your sink," a
fourth grader suggested one year. "Then when Mr. Duggan washes the
dishes, he will get water everywhere!"
This year, my
second graders were the merry pranksters. The classes earn points in
music based on their behavior. This particular class earned five points
on April Fools' Day, the highest score possible.
"Let's April Fools' our teacher!" one of the students called out.
They all put a single finger in the air, indicating that they had only earned one point.
"You have to look sadder than that if she's going to believe you!" I told them. "Stop grinning . . ."
They
tried with all their might not to bust out laughing, and when the
teacher appeared in the doorway, the line leader immediately gave her a
huge smile and shouted, "Just kidding! We got a five!"
"Wait don't tell her yet! You've got to milk it a little longer!" I said.
If you've been a faithful reader of mine for a while, you know my 5th and 6th graders put on a spring musical every year. It has become quite the tradition. Over 100 kids auditioned for a part and turned in teacher-signed "contracts" for our elementary school production of The Lion King this year.
When I posted the cast list after winter break, my classroom door suddenly morphed into the most popular door in the building. Kids would check the cast list a couple of times a day to see who was playing what role or who their understudy was.
We began lunch time rehearsals, and kids would hang around my door again, checking the schedule, dejected if their scene wasn't posted.
"Why can't I come in today?"
"I have 108 kids in the cast. You can’t all come in at once," I explained.
Who ever heard of 6th graders wanting to spend so much time in the music room anyway?
Most of the kids had positive attitudes about their roles (aside from one boy who called me "The Dream Crusher"). Of course, all of the kids sign contracts that say they will accept whatever role they get, and they WILL LIKE IT, dang it!
When we rehearsed the music in class, the kids fell in love with the songs.
One day, a girl walked into my room and announced, "Music just keeps getting more and more exciting!"
After we blocked "The Circle of Life," the 5th graders asked if they could practice it over and over. I have to admit, I also was pretty proud of the way I blocked that particular song.
About a month into our rehearsals, one of the 5th grade teachers told me she and her students were discussing the highs and lows for the day.
"Music was the high for several of them, specifically getting to sing 'The Circle of Life,'" she shared.
I received the cutest Valentine in February that said a bunch of stuff about loving music and ended with, "I can't wait for 'paly!'" I think she meant to write, "play."
If we finished lunch rehearsal early, the 6th grade boys often chose to stay and practice their song and dance numbers instead of heading out to the final minutes of recess.
I, on the other hand, had stress dreams. One recurring nightmare involved none of the classes showing up to our final rehearsals, leaving me standing alone in the dark gym.
"We would never do that to you, Mrs. Duggan," the kids promised.
The cast and I also had fun making the obligatory Star Wars parallels.
"Rafiki is Yoda."
"Simba is Luke Skywalker, obviously."
"Nala is Princess Leia. She even says, 'You're our only hope.'"
"Timon is C-3PO and Pumbaa is R2-D2."
"And Scar is Darth Vader!"
"So the Hyenas are the Storm Troopers?"
"Who would Mufasa be?"
"Obi-Wan Kenobi," I said. "He was like a father figure to Skywalker."
"Wouldn't that make Mufasa Darth Vader?" one kid asked. "Or is Scar actually Simba's dad?"
We all paused in silence for a moment.
"Okay, let's get back to rehearsal!" I said.
I don't want to give the impression that I put together this whole production by myself. I handled the music and the acting. Everyone else, from the PE teacher to the administrative assistant to the parents to the student teachers to the grade level teachers pitched in with face painting, hair, costume pinning, set design, construction, and choreography. Community theater groups and other elementary schools also allowed us to borrow set pieces and props.
I finished our final dress rehearsal with these words, “This is a beautiful story about the legacy our family members and ancestors leave
behind and having to decide whether or not to follow that legacy.
Tell that story tomorrow, and you will touch a lot of hearts.”
By the time the morning of the show rolled around, they were ready to tell that story.
A few hours before the A.M. performance, my dad sent me a text before driving up to Boise for the program.
He really did wear this to the performance. Luckily, he wore a more professional looking sweater over it.
The performance was powerful. "Remember who you are . . ." rang out across the school gymnasium.
The production was the perfect illustration as to how the arts can bring kids and communities together, how it teaches children to put aside their differences, solve problems, resolve conflict, and work as a team.
The day before spring break, my teacher friend walked her class to music and said, "I think I'm having Lion King withdrawals."
"Me too," I sighed.
Later that afternoon, another teacher friend poked her head in my room.
"You haven’t left for spring break yet?" she asked.
"I'm kind of dragging my feet," I confessed. "Leaving the school means I have to say goodbye to The Lion King."
I asked my 5th and 6th graders to write letters entitled, "How to Survive the Spring Musical" to next year’s 5th graders.
I discovered maybe they did pay attention to me after all . . . at least occasionally.
"Do what Mrs. Duggan says. She is looking
for kids who have positive attitudes and behave all over the school."
"Sing from your heart."
"Don’t
complain about the costumes. Parent volunteers have spent a lot of time
making those for you. Only say nice things about the costumes like, 'That looks great!'"
"You HAVE to be there for tech week!"
But my favorite was:
"Mrs. Duggan will cry a
little, and that means she likes it."
Picture of me with some of the Lion King cast, signed by the 6th graders
Let me tell you what I wish I'd known When I was young and dreamed of glory. You have no control: Who lives, Who dies, Who tells your story?
Try not to be jealous, everyone, but I'm going to see Hamilton.
My husband, Dan, and I have been trying to get tickets forever. We were hoping to see the original cast in New York a couple of summers ago, but it was next to impossible to get tickets . . . except for the nosebleed seats that cost something like $3000 a piece. We decided against it.
The last time we visited New York, Dan and I went to In the Heights, also by Lin-Manuel Miranda. A few years later, Hamilton took the world by storm. Dan and I bought the album. We watched the cast perform on the Tony Awards and for President Obama. Even Dan, not exactly a musical theater lover, took almost as much of an interest in it as I did.
"I was listening to Hamilton today at work," Dan told me one night, "and it's basically a rap concept album!"
He appreciated the cleverness of the King George song and its musical homage to the Beatles and the British Invasion (a literal invasion in the show).
Cuz when push comes to shove I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love Da da da dat da . . .
He bought the "Hamilton Mix Tape." He checked out the Hamildrops, the latest being "The Hamilton Polka," by Weird Al.
Dan may act calm and collected, but he got just as excited as I did every time Daveed Diggs showed up in a movie or a TV show or in some experimental hip hop group.
Then there is me, never one to act calm and collected.
Not long ago, we visited a museum that featured a traveling exhibit about America's founding fathers. Every time we came upon a plaque about the Marquis de Lafayette, I would yell out, "Lafayette!" One of the displays was even named, "The Room Where It Happened," and I did my best Aaron Burr impersonation.
The game is played. The art of the trade, How the sausage gets made. We just assume that it happens. But no one else is in the room where it happens.
Then I started hearing about real people, people I knew as friends, family members, and acquaintances, actually getting into the show. What kind of dark magic was this?
Most of my extended family live in Illinois and when Hamilton moved into the Chicago theater district, many of them headed to the city to see the show.
Boise did not make the cut for the Northwest tour (at least not this season, fingers crossed!), but Portland, Seattle, and Salt Lake did. Dan and I made a few futile attempts to get tickets. All of the theaters seemed to sell out right away.
Friends of mine on Facebook were still getting Hamilton tickets! But how . . . ?
Over the holidays, I texted one of these friends, "By the way, I was going to brag about the fact
that Dan got me Hamilton: The Revolution for Christmas, but then I saw that your wife
got you actual TICKETS TO SEE HAMILTON! So you win haha!"
Around the same time, another friend posted that she had finished the Hamilton biography, in preparation to see the musical in Seattle, and that she was starting another book, I think about President Trump or something, I don't know because, as I commented on her post: "All I heard was YOU’RE GOING TO SEE HAMILTON!"
“We're not trying hard enough!" I told Dan.
"What?"
"To get Hamilton tickets."
"We've tried . . . " he said half-heartedly.
"Then how come everybody and their dog are going, but not us?"
"It will probably come to Boise next season, like American Idiot and Book of Mormon. We're usually the next stop after the first Northwest tour," Dan said.
"Then we can see it again, like we did with American Idiot and Book of Mormon," I leaned in and glared at him intensely. "I am NOT throwing away my SHOT!"
I danced into the next room, "Yo, I'm just like my country, I'm young, scrappy, and hungry . . ."
Finally, we got on StubHub and found some tickets to the Portland show. I didn't trust StubHub, I guess, because I am not a Millennial. I don't completely trust anything on the web.
Back in the day, we would have called the sellers on StubHub, "ticket scalpers." Supposedly StubHub had legitimized that trade. If worse came to worse, we would get our money back.
The tickets were guaranteed to arrive by the day of the performance, also scary seeing how the show was in PORTLAND. StubHub made it sound like we could get the tickets earlier than that though.
A few days later, Dan was notified that Salt Lake City tickets were going on sale. Since we weren't certain we would get the Portland tickets in time, Dan stood in a "virtual line” on his computer for hours, only to learn the show had sold out by the end of the afternoon.
"I guess we have to trust that StubHub is legit," Dan said.
On March 1, 2018, Dan forwarded me a message from StubHub. Our tickets had shipped!
I burst through the garage door that evening and dropped all of my work gear in front of Dan.
“WE’RE GOING?!”
"We're going," he said.
We received the tickets in the mail the next day.
.
So, yeah. I have been rocking out to the cast recording in my car. I have been dancing down my driveway, earbuds in, picking up the mail. Don't judge.
I just have to get through one more week of school and a huge spring musical. No biggie.
"Am I going to survive this coming week?" I asked Dan the other night.
"Only one more week, and then we get to see Hamilton," he reminded me.
I froze, stared ahead dramatically, and started to sing:
Alexander Hamilton. My name is Alexander Hamilton. And there's a million things I haven't done But just you wait, just you wait . . .
Dan said, under his breath, "The better question is, am I going to survive this coming week?"
If you and I are friends on Facebook, you may have seen that I AM GOING TO HAMILTON! Whoa! You mean, I get to see The Pixies, Weezer, and Hamilton all in one year? I was planning to write a hilarious post on how I finally got Hamilton tickets, but that awesome pipe dream was squashed by a crazy, busy work week. Never fear! I will fill you all in next week. Until then, here is my almost equally exciting post about seeing Weezer AND The Pixies this summer, re-posted from 11/14/17.
Guys, Weezer is coming to Salt Lake!
Wait! It gets better.
Weezer
AND The Pixies are coming to Salt Lake! Now is the point where my
Millennial friends say, "Who are The Pixies?" It's okay. I'll teach you.
This
summer, I am going to see Weezer (AND The Pixies). It doesn't matter
when it is. (It's in the summer. Thank you, God!) This is one of those
take-a-sick-day, sleep-in-my-car-if-I-have-to,
stay-out-all-night-on-a-weeknight kind of concerts.
The beginning of my sophomore year in college, I rushed out to buy Pinkerton
on cassette because that is all that would play in my '95 Hyundai Excel
back then. (I also copied the Blue Album onto cassette, so I could
listen to it in my car. The struggle was real, kids.)
Pinkerton remains my favorite Weezer album to this day, probably due to the opera
references. (Yes, I own the CD now.)
When my husband,
Dan, and I were dating, he would burn entire CDs of music he deemed
necessary relationship barometers. I'm not talking about a puny High Fidelty-esque playlist. I mean, I would receive hours and hours of MP3s compiled from his favorite indie bands.
One
of these MP3-filled discs consisted of a bunch of obscure, unreleased
Weezer songs downloaded from some website. He was a Weezer fan too. I
decided to keep him.
During our dating years, Dan and I
saw Weezer in concert. It was our first road trip and our first concert
together. By the end of the show, even reserved and quiet Dan (who was
even more reserved and quiet that early in our relationship) was
cheering and making a "W" with his hands.
"They are such a good live band!" he exclaimed as we left the arena.
Weezer basically cemented our relationship.
Nowadays,
I have a Green Album poster, given to me by my brother when I moved
into one of my apartments, hanging in our music room right above a bag
that is filled with Handel, Mozart, and Puccini arias.
We
also own the Blue and Green Album guitar books, although I doubt we
have any hope of ever playing like them. Well, maybe Dan has some hope. I
gave up a long time ago.
I have stuck it out with
Weezer through every album, EP, B-side, a Rivers Cuomo rarities CD Dan
gave me for Christmas one year, even while they have been panned by
critics and fans for expanding their sound, going "pop," and trying new
things. People just need to chill and not take everything so seriously.
When the Weezer AND The Pixies tour was announced, Dan immediately texted me, "What are you doing August 1st?"
Five
minutes later, my brother mentioned me on the tour's Facebook post,
"Becky Turner Duggan, I know where you will be August 1st!"
My response to both: "WEEZER AND THE PIXIES? WHAT IS HAPPENING?"
The next morning, a friend of mine had commented on one of my Facebook posts, "Weezer is coming to SLC!"
"I have been freaking out for, like, the last 24 hours," I replied.
Then
I proceeded to listen to every Weezer album ever recorded, something
Dan and I call a Weezer Fest. We do this whenever we are preparing to
attend a concert (or, less happily, when a band member dies).
A former choir student of mine, now in his twenties, posted this video on my Facebook wall one day.
My elementary choir does an aerobic warm-up to Weezer's "Buddy Holly" at least once a month.
"This brings back memories, doesn't it, Mrs. Duggan?" he said.
Elementary school kids are crazy. And hilarious. And unfiltered. Here is the latest installment of Kid Funnies from my school year. Enjoy!
1. Bastard!
On music game day, a couple of six-year-olds were at my listening station where I introduce them to the magic of CDs, all of which have been deemed school appropriate by yours truly. Or so I thought.
"Mrs. Duggan, is 'bastard' a bad word?" one of the kids shouted (of course, since he was wearing headphones).
I spent an hour after school, scouring my listening station for inappropriate songs. I found no mention of a "bastard" in any song. The only thing I can think of is that he mistakenly thought he heard the word.
2. The Well-Oiled Machine
Occasionally, one of my first graders behaves like a machine. How do I know? He suddenly pops up in his seat, making whirring noises while his eyes roll around in his head. Then his body flops over when the machine finally shuts down. And no, he is not having seizures. I already checked with the nurse.
3. What Are You Wearing on Your Head?
I have a student who loves to dress like animals. One year, she wore a tail almost everyday. The other day, she was wearing a thing on her head that looked way too much like one of those bachelorette party penis hats.
"I made it myself!" she said proudly.
It took me a minute to figure out she was supposed to be a unicorn.
4. My Maiden Name
I have a student whose last name is the same as my maiden name. None of the kids know my maiden name anymore because I was married before they were born.
"Do you know what my name was before I was Mrs. Duggan?" I asked the student.
She paused for a moment, regarding me, deep in thought.
Then she said, "Rebecca?"
5. What Happened to Rock 'N Roll?
I force the choir kids to do a physical warmup to Weezer's "Buddy Holly" most mornings.
"This is when music rocked!" I told them all. "Nowadays, you just listen to that synthesized stuff."
"You sound like a real grown-up, Mrs. Duggan," said a fifth grade girl.
6. This music reminds me of . . .
My fourth graders were filling out a listening log in preparation for the Philharmonic Children's Concert next week. The final question was "This music reminds me of . . ."
One of my students wrote, "This music reminds me of Mrs. Duggan because it started calm and got excited all of a sudden."
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