The odd kids, the out gay kids, the awkward, eccentric, gracious, smart, polite, happy and some of them cool kids, the pastor's daughter, the kids that sing and do it well, they’re the high school drama kids and they’re my favorite group to drive around Utah. They attend conferences and drama competitions throughout the school year and lucky me, I’ve been their bus driver many times.
We go to nice places like Ogden, Cedar City, and Provo/Orem. Cities where I can run around endlessly while they’re doing their thing and I am free. Paved bike paths, single track MTB trails, cool downtown’s, large college campuses, specialty shops, thrift stores, box stores, museums. This Thur, Fri and Sat we’re in Ogden for a conference.
Treece is a senior this year. He fits into the odd category. He’s a confident young guy. Almost 18, he will tell you how many months away he is from ‘adulthood.’ Today I had a hilariously tender moment with Treece. We ended up sitting together in the comfy chairs of an Ogden mall 40 minutes before it was time to load the bus and go to the evening play. He started kvetching his woes … he needed to find a flower shop, he needed a Zions bank to withdraw money to buy those flowers for a girl at the conference that he met last year. The boy is smitten, twitterpated. I suggest he spend what he had to buy the flowers that he could, it’s the thought that counts. Now we need a flower shop.
He doesn’t have a phone so I helped him out. Easy, “Flower shops near me.” Wow! The Flower Shop is a four minute walk from where we’re sitting. Treece reasonably asks me if I will walk with him, because the kids can’t go anywhere alone, I agree. Excitedly we walk out the mall and across the parking lot to a small flower shop that is packed on a Friday night at 6 p.m.? Something about this just doesn’t look right. Though it says Flower Shop on the glass, dudes are walking out with graphically designed vacuum sealed doggy bags. Inside the door is a waiting room where you check in to enter to purchase medical grade cannabis. Not the sort of flower Treece was looking to buy. We had a good laugh and walked back to the mall. In those remaining minutes he bought her a Lego flower kit. Nice save.
Back on the bus and five minutes past our 6:20 leave time for the play, kids are missing. It's unusual for them to be more than a couple minutes late. Then we hear that Lane is getting his haircut, right now! A few more minutes passed and he arrived on the bus looking just like he did before the haircut. He was bummed that he spent $40 for nothing and he got to the bus late. Lane is cool, smart, confident, and out gay. He reminds me of my son when he plays games as we drive, he’s aggressive and his clues playing Heads Up are precise.
Despite graduating a dozen kids last year, the club is the largest ever. There are a bunch of new faces this year. At the play, two of the new girls are sitting in front of me. One leans on the other, they snuggle and grab hands, they’re out gay too!? In addition to the other female out gay couple in the club from last year?
It’s so different from when I was in high school. We meanly called out ‘fags’ and public display of affection between any two of the same gender was not tolerated. But it's also still the same. Hormones rage and they barely control it. Lane is searching for a husband from the play Camelot. Girls are giddy in their new partnerships. I’ve been in Treece's shoes, toiling over how to pursue a crush. What’s different is the courage and compassion that today's kids possess. The advisor(s) of the drama team treat all these kids the same, it’s delightful to see.
No story about this group would be complete without mentioning the leader of this pack, Jeralee. She’s in her early 70’s but has the energy and vivaciousness of a 20 year old. It was 50 years ago that she first took the reins of the drama club. She loves theater and the musicals that I have seen over the past 25 years living in Moab have been outstanding. She shares stories from her youth as she mentors the kids as much as she teaches them. Unlike how I learned from my own father.
What I learned from my dad was how to NOT act and treat others. When he died I never shed a tear. He left our family when I was eight. Growing up in Texas my father had a name for the black neighborhood that we drove through on the way to Canyon Lake, he called it Niggersville. Before he died he lived in North Georgia with his third wife, in a small town where the KKK still marches, and I’m guessing he was sorta okay with that. His body was full of cancer when he died.
It's the primary season for the 2024 presidential election. Donald Trump, a man filled with anger, hate and vengeance for the ‘other’ will likely be the GOP nominee. America is in for nine months of disinformation, mudslinging, lies and I don’t look forward to it. But like my father, hatred corrodes the container it’s carried in. Trump will be dead soon too. Yet I see these kids and it fills me with hope, they are caring and kind and absolutely accepting of the ‘other.’
America is going to be okay. Jeralee and these drama kids are gonna save it.
This is the most encouraging thing I've read in a while. Thanks, Thomas.