The old echo fades away But just you and I Can find the answer And then, we can run to the end of the world

 

It's Spring Recital Season once again, after a two year Covid-related hiatus. Everyone is sending me this Bernie Meme (again). When they were first a Thing, everyone had sent this to me because this was, in fact, literally my grandfather during every school event. The one that everyone is was thinking of specifically in this instance was the Fall Choir Recital of my freshman year of high school.

I remember this very vividly (and apparently, so does everyone else), because this was the recital that we all had to stay on stage for the full duration of the recital. So no only did we have to sit through a  LOT of bad  singing, but having to keep a straight face through that AND my grandfather looking like he'd rather be somewhere, anywhere, else, slinking down in his chair like a small child trying to escape the horrors of the most hackneyed cliché of high school performance clichés in which someone who was a terrible singer was slaughtering showtunes. But, not just ANY showtunes, the most garden variety and hackneyed cliché of clichés--like THE Musical Theatre Kid Recital Song All the Annoying Girls Sing. Yes, THAT one. 

Did I mention I had lied about being an alto so I could sit with my friends? Well, that was a bad idea, honestly, for all of us, because not only could I NOT behave and NOT keep a straight face but my friends were, and ARE, even worse than me. 

I had wanted to do a solo, but was told I could not, *see the above song from a video game I had never played but loved the song from. (When listening back on this song, I can tell you have formative and seminal this song has been on my life and my music, and still slaps, as far as I am concerned!)

Anyway, my grandfather will have been gone for 20 years now in April, and it's just remarkable that his memories are as seminal and precious to other people as they are to me.