The youngest is nearly recovered from that “tough love” thrashing we gave her following that blanket incident! Seriously, it’s all good, tho not without the occasional speedbump. Maybe I’ll start another thread on “Has your kid ever run away from home?” (just for a few hours, but it was a little scary nonetheless!)
Quick recap/update for those keeping score
oldest (girl) is a HS senior. Going to Illinois State to study music ed. Got offered early enrollment on both flute and piano, and a nice partial ride. The neatest thing is to see her confidence blossom in response to having a school express an interest in her, as well as reaping the benefits from all her hard work.
The boy is a sophomore. Besides theater he still does boy scouts and is in an American Rev War re-enactment group. Attained Eagle last fall. The ceremony was on his 16th b-day, and we gave him a black powder musket. Excessive, but the kind of thing he’ll remember all his life. We visited West Point last summer, and as a result he is not as thrilled as he had been with the prospect of trying to get into a military academy. To his credit he thinks a regular school - maybe with ROTC “would be a lot more fun!”
The youngest (girl) is a freshman. She’s playing badminton this spring - the first of our kids to participate in a school athletics. She is doing extremely well at bassoon (would probably do even better if she ever practiced without us bugging her.) Just got her braces off. There’s more friction between us and her than the other 2 kids, but nothing terminal.
They are all getting good grades, no pregnancies that I know of, and I haven’t had to pick any of them up at the police station or hospital yet.
Good god, how did that happen?
Actually some inconsiderate cow-orker stopped in mid-post and actually expected me to discuss some work.
Could someone remind me how you edit posts?
I played a Nazi in a high school production. I was Josef Mengele in Arthur Miller’s Playing for Time (also quite a downer), and I’d like Dinsdale to know that I turned out okay. I did nusink wrong! I only followed orders! I vas a ski instructor in Sviterland at ze time!
Man, you obviously understand what is going on here. Like we really needed ANOTHER opportunity to teach my kids to make snarky, entirely tasteless jokes about horrific matters…
What my poor long-suffering wife needs in her household is at least one responsible adult!
I guess that would be my 18 year old!
My brother, age 13, recently played a mustache-twirling Scottish torturer in a play about the martyrdom of some saint or another. I didn’t get to see the play, but it apparently had all kinds of eye-gouging and whatnot. He had a blast hamming it up, though I still think that their drama club (for Catholic home-schooled kids) is thoroughly demented for picking that particular play.
Last time I did Sound of Music (at a high school) every single kid cast as a Nazi was Jewish. Every last damn one of them. They thought it was funny as hell. Their parents, not so much…
Playing the villain is often more fun than playing the hero. You get to act in ways you’d never be able to in real life and explore the darker sides of humanity. Seriously, my favorite role ever was Mephistopheles in Dr. Faustus. Creepy, but fun.
You can’t edit posts here. Causes problems in Great Debates. We are too contentous a bunch for that! (Hell, it would cause problems in MPSIMS and Cafe Society). So we just live with our typos, and give the admins and mods chocolate to fix the really bad mistakes
Heh…I was in ‘I Never Saw Another Butterfly’ 300 years ago when I was in high school, and I turned out okay. And by ‘okay’ I mean ‘not a Nazi.’ Actually, I played the mother, who complained alot and didn’t make it to the last act. I also played Mina in our production of Dracula and yes, evil is more fun!
Yeah, I have a very deep understanding of that whole situation. I don’t remember my parents making a lot of tasteless jokes about the Holocaust, but I’d already learned that lesson from them. I do have some strong memories of the jokes we made amongst ourselves in the cast, though. Most of the Nazis and guards were played by Jewish kids - this is a very Jewish area - so there was bound to be a lot of dark humor and weird irony about the circumstances anyway. I remember kidding the whole way to a Holocaust Museum at one point.
At my son’s elementary school here in Japan, we have an annual school play day, where each grade puts on a short play of about 15 to 30 minutes in turn, resulting in hours of boredom - it takes up nearly the whole of one Saturday. (Our school is small so we are expected to stay all day - big schools let you come and go as you please.)
The first three grades are given plays by their teachers, and they come from a fairly standard stock, all bright and cheerful with moral points hammered home to nauseum.
Our school is a bit different in that from the 4th grade onwards the kids write their own plays. Last year’s 4th graders chose a really sunny little piece about the elephants in wartime Tokyo zoo. There was no food for them, they were being bombed and there were no guns to shoot the animals, so the decision was made to withold water from them till they died. (This is true by the way.) The kids put on a most amazing agonized performance as the keepers, dragging each other back from trying to sneak the elephants water, which though kind for a moment, would prolong their agony. All this was done to a powerpoint slide show of red flames, bombs and agonised elephant photos, ending with a (I hope) photoshopped picture of a dead elephant in a pool of blood (why??? They died of thirst!) and bombing side effects, with all the kids standing there with fists raised, yelling “We hate war!”
At the end, there was an absolute stunned silence - no applause, nothing. Then a little brother who was about three years old wailed, “So did the elephants DIE then???” and burst into tears. That broke the spell, and the adults burst into hysterics and loud applause.
Then the principle stood up and made some gracious comments about how she believed in the kids freedom of expression even at the expense of the parents and teachers finer feelings -----------EEEK! Just had an earthquake while typing that and had to rush out of the house.
Still shaking - no cracks or any damage. Ugh, shudder.
Hey Dange, thanks for allowing me a whoosh on my first day back!
And how YOU doin, ferret?
Love the SoM story Apple - sounds so typical of kids - and their parents.
And push, I believe the story is about Terezin, but my understanding was that it was - at least in some respects - a way-station with Auschwitz as the final stop. That is why I phrased the OP as I did. But I am no expert, and I thank you for the clarification.
Seriously, it’s all good, tho not without the occasional speedbump. Maybe I’ll start another thread on “Has your kid ever run away from home?” (just for a few hours, but it was a little scary nonetheless!)
