This happened our senior year. Even in our naive innocence we learned that things do not always turn out as you expect !
An old friend of Mr. Harris came to PCHS, I think without any advance warning, to put on a one-man show for the students.
After coughing up 20 cents, we went to the gym and we sat with anxious anticipation for the show to begin. Would we see a magic act? Would he pull a rabbit out of a hat?
The fellow looked older than Mr. Harris, and that is saying something. Was he one of the last relics of Vaudeville? Would he do a soft shoe dance routine while playing Swanee River on a harmonica?
Ed Sullivan often featured a gent who did hand shadows of famous people on a screen. Perhaps this unusual act was in store for the entertainment starved youth of PCHS.
Our questions were soon answered when he began to quote poetry from Indiana's own James Whitcome Riley. The only poem I remember was the immortal--"When the frost is on the pumpkin."
Credit where it is due: His voice and diction reflected hours of practice. I suspect he was a retired Literature teacher and this was a quick way to turn a buck. Maybe Mr. Harris owed him something.
It is hard to project your own disappointment upon others. Yet, as I looked around, it appeared to me and others, their facial expressions seemed to reflect a collective mirror that seemed to say--"We wuz robbed!"
Perhaps part of my skepticism at age 17 remains. Did this fellow and Mr. Harris split the take?
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