The Monster

 In order to fulfill my degree in Fine Arts, I had to take courses in music and art.  My Music Appreciation course was awful.  I really didn't care about having to identify classical pieces, so I didn't do very well in that course.  I did get to go to Rock Hill to hear the NY Philharmonic at Winthrop as part of the course, but we were almost killed coming back, when our driver (and professor) fell asleep at the wheel, and we came within inches of crashing into a bridge.
 My art class was Sculpture.  I can't draw worth a lick, so Sculpture seemed to be my only option.  Our class was commissioned by the town of Clinton to come up with sculptures for a park.  They wanted sculptures that would be functional for kids to play on, as well as being somethings that folks could look at and appreciate.  In addition to the artwork, we were also supposed to design playground equipment that would be nice to look at.  So, we got to work.
 I helped design a swing set, which was made out of logs.  It looked kind of rustic.  Then, I had to come up with an idea for a sculpture.  I just couldn't think of anything.  I knew that it had to be something that kids could play on.  I had an idea about that, but how could I make it appealing to the masses?  The teacher was putting pressure on us to come up with ideas.  The time was growing short.  I got frustrated and threw a ball of clay down on my table and stuck a knife through the middle.  The teacher saw it and said that my concept was great.  I thought he was either drunk or high or both, but I went with his critique.  I developed a model of a large ball that sat flat on the ground.  There was a center hole that went through the length of the piece, and a side ledge, which kids could use to climb up on the piece.  It was our assignment to design the sculptures.  The next semester's goal was to build them from our designs.
 So, during the Spring of 1975, my sculpture was built.  They took wood and chicken wire to make the foundation, and then they poured concrete over the top.  Kids could climb on it and slide down through the middle.  It was called "The Monster" because of its size.  It stood a little over six feet tall.  It was also about seven feet wide.  To me, it looked like a big blob of cement, but I guess art is in the eye of the beholder. 
 The Monster stood in that park for several years.  In the mid-1980's, it was dismantled, because some teenagers were spray painting obscenities on the sides.  My swing set has remained, but The Monster is no more.

The Tornado

 I was sitting in class at PC one morning.  The class was on the 3rd floor of the three-story classroom building.  We were watching a movie.  All of a sudden, the power went off, and we heard a freight train outside the window.  Our teacher told everyone to get on the floor.  He knew what it was.  I didn't. 
 After a short time, (it felt longer than it actually was) the "train" was gone and everyone started getting up off of the floor.  The teacher asked us if we were okay, and everyone said yes.  We slowly walked outside, fearing what we would see.  I looked around and saw the buildings seemed to be okay.  I did see a tree that was next to my dorm was gone.  I went to my dorm room and saw that a tree next to my window was gone.  My room overlooked the football field, and I saw that the tornado had taken out all of the light poles about halfway up.  I realized what had happened.  The tornado had taken the tree on one side of my dorm; skipped over the building; and then taken the tree on the other side of my dorm before going across the field.  If it had gone through my dorm, it would have gone straight through my room.  The tornado also tore through some homes on the other side of the football field, but thankfully no one was seriously hurt.  The fact that it happened in the Spring meant that football season was over, so they had time to repair the light poles. 
 It was pretty scary, but we were also thankful that it wasn't worse.  That was the first of three tornadoes that I have been in.  I will write about the other two later.  The fact is that it DOES sound like a freight train.  Three tornadoes in my lifetime are three too many.  I pray that I will never be in a fourth.

Fripp

 The quality of our Theatre work at PC spread past the confines of the school.  We were invited to an Alcohol Symposium on Fripp Island attended by educators and people who worked with substance abusers to present the theme of the conference in a dramatic way.  They gave us the theme in advance, and I helped write it.  There were five of us that went to the conference.  Our skit was based on a family dealing with the crisis of young people drinking, and the parents also drinking, but not knowing where the kids got their behavior to drink.  The theme was on alcohol prevention.
 So, we went to this resort on Fripp Island in South Carolina.  We got lost a couple of times going down there, but we made it in time for the Friday night opening.  The conference went from Friday night to Sunday morning.  Our presentation was very well received.  The leader of the conference suggested that we sit in on the discussion groups, because he wanted us to come up with a summary skit of the conference. 
 The main speaker at the conference was a Canadian professor named Wilson Bryan Key.  He taught media at a university in Toronto.  He had written a book called "Subliminal Seduction".  His theory was that advertisers place subliminal things in their ads that make you want to buy the product.  For example, he showed a picture of ice cubes from a drink, and the advertisers and painted in two polar bears mating in the ice.  He said that your brain saw things subconsciously that you didn't realize you were seeing, which would cause you to react in a way that the advertisers wanted you to react without knowing why.  Another example was the $5 bill.  Supposedly, the government etched the word "sex" in Lincoln's beard, which would make you want to like the bill more.  Now, I have to say that much of his theory sounded a bit like paranoia, but some of what he said actually made sense.  You might want to check out the book to see for yourself.
 Anyway, this was a meeting for those people on the front lines of trying to get young people not to drink.  After the conference each night, many of the participants went to the bar at the resort for drinks.  They also bought liquor and drank in their rooms.  These folks would put their trash cans out to be picked up, and they were full of bottles and cans.  It brought to mind the old adage--Do as I say, not as I do.  I know there is a school of thought that one must experience things before they can help others, but this was not so much experiencing the drinking as much as experiencing the hangover the next morning. 
 On Sunday morning, we presented our summary skit for  the conference.  It was basically the same one we did Friday night with a few changes.  The resort was pretty nice.  There were several things that we wanted to take as souvenirs.  Towels, sheets, silverware, candle centerpieces from the restaurant, napkins glasses, whatever wasn't nailed down.  We tried for the TV's, but they were screwed to the wall, and we didn't bring any screwdrivers.  I got two candles, two glasses, a towel, and some silverware.  I had the things wrapped in the towel.  When we got back to PC, I was walking in the dorm with my loot, and I tripped on the step.  I dropped my stuff on the cement floor, and the glasses and one candle broke.  I was able to save one candle and the silverware.  I guess that was my punishment.
 On Monday, our teacher got a call from the resort.  They asked about all the stuff that was missing.  We denied taking anything, but they knew we had stolen the stuff.  PC was not asked back the following year for the conference.  Sorry, guys.

Belk Toys

 You may remember I time when there were downtown department stores.  This was before malls got popular and the downtown area became a ghost town.  So, around Christmas, 1974 I was hired as a stock boy for the Toy Department in our downtown Belk Department Store.  It was just a Christmas job before going back to PC for the Spring semester.
 Officially, my job was to restock the toy shelves during the Christmas rush.  I worked with 2 other people.  Belk sat on the corner of Main and Hampton Streets, which is where the art museum is now along with a bank.  Other stores downtown included Davison's, Penney's, Haltiwanger's, Tapp's, and one or two more.  Belk was the biggest.  It had four floors, although only three were for selling to customers.  The fourth floor had offices, a restaurant, and stock rooms.  Our toy stockroom was on the fourth floor.  Near the back of the stockroom was an opening with a metal slide that connected to the stockroom behind Toys on the third floor.  The concept was to slide the toys from the fourth floor to someone on the third floor to restock the department.  It was a good concept, since the third floor stockroom couldn't hold many toys.  We were told that we couldn't slide down the slide between floors, but we did anyway.  After all, one had to have fun.
 There was a lot of downtime during the day, so I would go out onto the floor and help customers find stuff.  It also got busy, when a sales associate would leave the register to go help someone, so I learned how to run the register, and rang up stuff for other associates.  One in particular--Cathy.  She was nice, and I had a crush on her.  Her sales started going through the roof, because I would ring stuff on her number.  She didn't find out until I was about to leave the job.  My supervisor got mad at me, because I wasn't supposed to ring stuff up, but then I thought that it meant more money for the store, because customers might leave mad because I couldn't help them.  That was the start of my thinking that the customer was the most important part of the equation.  My supervisor wanted me to just stock toys, but there were just so many toys we could put on the fixtures. 
 I would return to Belk after graduation from PC to work a year, while saving money for my next adventure.  I will write about that later, but for now just to say that retail during Christmas is not very fun.  Be kind to those workers.  They are trying to help you, whether you believe it or not.

The Breaking of Bread Revisited

 As you know, if you have been reading this blog, one of my most successful ventures in Theatre was at Anderson College doing "The Breaking of Bread".  If you don't know, you may want to read about it, but if you are too lazy, this play was a one-act that we did at AC and in surrounding churches.  It was about two soldiers in the Civil War, one Union and one Confederate, encountering one another with wanting to kill each other and then becoming friends.  It is a powerful play, and one we thought was jinxed, because someone got hurt or something went wrong during each performance.
 So, my first directing venture was at Presbyterian College in 1974.  I was required to direct a one-act play, and I chose "The Breaking of Bread".  After all, I was familiar with the piece, and it would be easy to direct it.  I immediately found a problem with it.  The Klan was very apparent in Laurens County at that time.  If I did a Civil War play about two soldiers coming together, there might be problems, so I rewrote the play.  Instead of it taking place during the Civil War, I changed it to World War III.  Instead of two soldiers from the US, I changed them to one from America and the other from England.  Yes, England and America were at war against one another.  And, there had been a nuclear war that had wiped out everyone except these last two guys. 
 Our casting went okay.  I cast a guy from the Theatre Dept. to play the American.  I brought in a guy from outside the department to play the British soldier.  We had a month of rehearsals, and everything was going great.  Then the jinx raised its head.  One afternoon rehearsal, about a week before opening night, the actor playing the British soldier said a line that I thought was funny, so I laughed.  He thought I was laughing at him.  I was laughing at his character.  He got mad and stormed off of the stage.  He said I insulted him.  I tried to coax him back, but he quit.  What was I going to do?  I was going to be graded on this play. 
 The other actor suggested a guy he had seen, who he thought could play the role of the British soldier.  I was desperate, so I saw him, and he was perfect for the role.  I had a flashback to the time I did the lead in "Up the Down Staircase" at Anderson with two days to cram for the role.  This new actor had to do the same thing.  Once again though, one has a great advantage in the Theatre that the audience does not have the scripts in front of them to know if a mistake was made.  Everything went off without a hitch, and the audience liked my play.  One thing about the Theatre that you should know is that the audience sees the finished product.  Thank goodness they don't see the rehearsals.

Improv

 One of my favorite TV shows is "Whose Line is it Anyway?".  It is an improvisation show.  It does not use scripts, and the actors come up with scenes from suggestions that the moderator gives or by those in the audience.  One very successful franchises for improv is Second City.  If you are not familiar with them, they have been around a long time, and many SNL cast members have come from there. 
 In 1974-75 at PC, I was required to direct two productions.  I am going to talk about the second one first. My second was an Improvisational workshop.  Back then, not many people knew about improv.  So, the workshop was part entertainment and part educational.  I assembled some actors from PC who knew how to do improv and we worked a couple of weeks beforehand on some techniques.  We only did one performance for PC.  We had promoted it all over campus, but only a few people showed up, and most of them were Psychology or Theatre students.  We had a good time, though.
 I have been accused of being a trend-setter for one thing or another.  I like to think that I introduced people to something back then who now take the form of Theatre for granted. 

Where Did We Go Wrong?

 Toward the end of the Fall semester at PC in 1974, I was cast in the lead role for a play called "Where Did We Go Wrong?"  It was a Christmas-themed play about the 4th Wise Man, and his goal to make money on souvenirs at the birth of Jesus.  He was consumed with the commercialization of Christmas. 
 We didn't have much in the way of props.  One of the funnier moments in the play was when he invents a car, because he hates camels.  We used 4 stools to represent the inside of the car, and much of the action was mimed.  It was hard to work out some stuff like everyone leaning to the left or right when making turns in the car.  The play had a lot of funny moments, but the end was very serious.
 We did a preview performance of the play at our theatre, and then we took it on the road.  We went to 2 churches in Clinton, and both were well received.  We then set out for Atlanta.  Our first performance was at the North Decatur Presbyterian Church.  All went well. 
 Our second performance in Atlanta was at the Druid Hills Presbyterian Church.  As I wrote in an earlier blog, I had been introduced to alcohol at PC.  It had been about a year since my first taste, and now I was a seasoned professional.  Earlier in that day, before the performance that night, I went with some friends to a bar at the top of our hotel in Atlanta.  I drank several Vodka Collins.  If you ever hear a drunk say that they can handle it, don't believe them.  We got to the church, and I could barely stand up.  Thankfully, much of the play required me to sit, so I didn't fall down.  However, one very scary thing happened.  I did all of my lines perfect.  My characterization was great.  My acting was great.  The scary thing came after the play.  People came backstage and told me it was the best performance they had ever seen.  They were comparing me to Olivier and DeNiro.  They were telling me that I was the best actor.  Others in the cast were fawning over me.  I couldn't remember a thing about what I had done on stage.  I had basically performed the lines on auto-pilot.  One of the actors told me that he could tell I was "different", but he couldn't put his finger on what it was.  I was drunk.  Because it was due to vodka, no one smelled it on my breath.  I only wished I could remember how great I was.  Never again did I ever perform either drunk or stoned.  I never wanted to forget that I was good.  That may sound egotistical, but I know I was the best.  I still had a problem with alcohol for years later, but never on stage again.  That one was scary.
 I loved that play.  It is one of my personal favorites of all I have done over the years.  If you can find it, you may want to look into doing it in your church.  Just don't have anyone drink before you do it.