I have
stumbled into a parallel universe, one from which I had fled eons ago. The
universe seems almost entirely the same as the one from which I came. Barack
Obama is the POTUS. Our world did not end when the Mayan calendar did. Twinkies
are back on shelves. But something is definitely amiss.
I was last
in that universe going on 40 years
ago. [Type 40 years and try not to choke on the big-ass catch in your
throat.] Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia, was brand spankin’
new when it opened when I was in seventh grade. I arrived the next year, and
found myself in a theatre class. [Do note the spelling of “theatre.”] I was
supremely pissed at my mother for signing me up, mostly because theatre is what
my sister did, and I wanted nothing to do with what she did.
I’ve written
about the experiences before. Five years in that theatre, and I grew to love it
once a most fabulous young teacher joined the staff my sophomore year. I’ve
written about him before, too. I still write of him nowadays from time to time.
He gave me away at my wedding. [While the marriage didn’t last, I don’t fault
his involvement in the wedding.] [Damn side thoughts in brackets.] [No more for
the rest of this post.]
The head of
the department was seen as this brilliant man. I saw him as a prick.
You know how high school football stars and cheerleaders look back and revel in
the joy that was high school? Meanwhile, the poor schlubs they picked on
remember the days without the haze of adoration. They remember the bad, what it
felt like to be on the outside.
Until my
friend came, I was involved in theatre, but I didn’t live and breathe it. Once
he arrived, I threw myself into the shows. Having never been one of the prick’s
favorites, I was never part of the inner circle. The good guy’s arrival changed
that. Let’s hear it for the good guys everywhere.
One of my
high school friends recently added me to a Facebook group which celebrates that
Little Theatre at Lake Braddock. I clicked over to the group, and I read the
adulation being heaped upon the prick by all of these long-ago girls who used
to give the prick backrubs. You want to be in the inner circle? First, be a
girl. Second, give the man backrubs.
I can still
see the prick as I saw him when I was 13 or 14, watching similarly aged girls
and older teen girls rubbing his back while he oooohed and aaaaaahed and pushed
his back into their fondling and massaging. It creeped me out then. It creeps
me out today.
But no one
mentions that in the feel-good Facebook group. They just sing his praises. And
I understand that a Facebook group isn’t the place to point out the whole
ickiness of it all. I guess this blog is.
The one
thought that keeps resonating in my head is this: these people have grown up
and many have had children and quite a few of those children are likely girls.
If their 13- or 15- or 17-year-old daughter came home and told them about
giving backrubs to a 40-year-old man time and time again, would they find that
perfectly acceptable?
As soon as I
return to my own universe, I’m going to remove myself from that Facebook group
in another universe. I will be eternally grateful to reside in this world I
call my own.
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