It's got to be done.

You see....everyone, and their mother, is probably blogging about Michael Jackson. Some love him, some hate him.....some lost their love once his life started spiraling out of control.

I don't really have an opinion.
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I now present to you, my "Way Back When-sday" posting..........on Monday. In honor of Michael Jackson.

I think it was 4th grade....but maybe not. It was either 2nd, 3rd or 4th. Take your pick.

There was a boy in my class that was diagnosed with cancer. He eventually received a bone marrow transplant, and then passed away around 8th grade. He was never well, and really didn't come to school much...if at all.

For Christmas, when I was in 4th (?) grade, our teachers decided to put on a Christmas play, and he was brought to school so we could perform it for him.

Even now, the details of the play are a little sketchy in my head....but it had something to do with an angel losing her wings, or her smile...or something. She was one of the smaller girls in the class, and she spent the whole play whining and crying about losing whatever it was that she'd lost and wanting it back.

It could have been Cinderella losing a shoe for all I really remember...but the angel thing fits with the whole Christmas genre a little better....so we'll go with that.

After a couple rehearsals, I was ready to find whatever it was myself just to make it stop.

She played the whining part well.

Too well. :-)

It was then the goal of the other characters in the play to spend the rest of the performance trying to cheer her up.

Frosty the Snowman danced to his namesake song.

St. Nick and his reindeer stopped by.

There were a handful of guys dressed as the reindeer...whose costumes, to this day, crack me up. More specifically, their horns. They had pantyhose stuck on their heads like hats....and toilet paper tubes in the legs to create the horns.

Oh the imagination of elementary school teachers!! :-)

I was one of the sugarplum fairies. And what did we do to try and cheer up the sniveling brat heart-broken child??? We danced, of course.

Isn't that what the sugarplum people are known for?

It was horrible. Not the performance so much as the choice of music.

You see....I'd taken dance since I was 3. The two other girls had taken it for quite some time as well...but from a different studio.

Since they already knew a choreographed dance, I was outnumbered, and had to learn their dance.

For a couple hours one afternoon, we got together to practice.

For the performance, they dressed in matching costumes...because, again, they had them. And again, I was odd man out and had to wear something completely different of my own. (sigh)

If I recall, their outfits were blue, and mine was orange. (Denver Broncos fans weren't complaining I'm sure) :-)

And you'll never guess what song we sugarplum fairies danced to?

For an elementary Christmas program.

For a classmate dying of cancer.

Thriller

Oh yeah....very appropriate.

:-)