Part XXVII

Coming back to Colorado was fun, I felt better about myself and that it was possible to be accepted on my own. With this in mind, I decided to give the football team another shot. I went out for the JV team and was doing okay when school started. A couple of days before my sophomore year began, I was surprised to see my Dad and Stepmother show up to my practice. They were not greatly interested in my extra-curricular activities so I was a bit alarmed. With the coaches permission, I ran over to the fence where they were standing. My Dad told me that Darin had called and wanted to come home, but he was not going to let him unless John and I were okay with it. It reminded me of when my Mom asked me if she should go back to her abusive husband when I was 11, what did I know? I was just a kid. I said yes, thinking that my new found confidence would be safe. So, when Darin showed up, I only asked him one thing...don't hit on the new girl, Julie, as I was planning my moves. Needless to say, he was dating her within the week.

Football also did not last long, this time I did not even make it to the first game before quitting the team. I had seen Twink, the Drama teacher, in the hall and he asked if I was auditioning for the fall play. They were doing "Harvey" and I had always loved the movie with Jimmy Stewart, so I just said yes without thinking that I was already committed to something else. Well, as committed as I was to anything, I guess. When I was cast as a major support part and romantic man across from the beautiful girl who would end up being our homecoming queen that year, the decision was made. Bye bye football, hello rehearsal! My character was a psychiatrist named Dr. Lyman Sanderson and Debbie played Nurse Kelly. I changed around my class schedule and enrolled in two drama classes for the fall and I also had Twink as my teacher for English and Speech-Forensics (Debate). He had an impact on my life because from that point on, I identified myself as an actor. He also was the first person to encourage my writing, pushing me to write a novella (which I never finished) and a play (which I never finished). On October 15th, 1982, I went on stage as Dr. Lyman Sanderson. I received a lot of laughs, attaboys (for kissing Debbie in a scene) and applause. It was heaven and I was addicted. I actually used to write poetry of the feeling I had on stage, I absolutely loved the affirmation. To a large degree, I still do. I just feel bad about it now. At the time, I was the youngest actor in our high school to get accolades, articles written for the school paper, and leading or major supporting roles. I hung out with all the seniors and (in that school) the popular kids and the pretty girls all did drama. I found what was to be my home for many years to come, I found the theater. Now, I had been in theater before, but no one had ever encouraged me the way that Twink did. Nor had I ever been regarded as good at it before. Now I had an identity.

I began on the speech and debate team after that, doing dramatic interpretation with a piece by Guy du Maupassant which was truly disturbing about a guy who kills his wife and enjoys it. It creeped people out but I was not successful. I also decided to do duet acting with my friend Matt as Lenny and me as George in John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." Matt was a huge guy and was hilarious, he went to state that year in Humorous Interpretation, as did my friend Colleen, but we could never work out a schedule to rehearse and we ended up letting it go. So, I asked Darin to play the part of Lenny but when we went to our coach, Lucinda Reed, she thought it just didn't work and instead told us to do a scene from "the Odd Couple" with Darin as Oscar and me as Felix. It was a fortuitous suggestion. Our first tournament was at Canon City High School and Darin and I scored a perfect score of 50 and won the tournament. I was so excited I was beside myself. We rode that bit into the state finals, but did not win. Throughout the year, we won a number of trophies and medals, but I think everyone had seen us do it by the time we got to state. It was suggested that we change bits, but we decided it had been good to us, so we kept it.

In January of 1983, I got the lead of Charley in a one-act play, "Adam's Rib Hurts." We performed both at the school in conjunction with another one-act, but also in a one-act festival. I abused the situation on stage and kissed (for real) my co-star Kristi. Years later, I would see Kristi on TV...she is a cop now and they followed her around on Fox's Cops. At the time, she and Debbie gave me a hard time about it, but just laughed at me. I was young and silly and they thought it as cute that I actually kissed her in the scene rather than a stage kiss. I made excuses, but yeah, it was on purpose.

Around the same time, I went to the town DMV and got a learner's permit. My Dad only took me out to learn to drive one time. He got frustrated with me in about 2 minutes and ended the lesson. I did not get my license when my birthday rolled around because Dad would not sign off on it until we practiced, but he never wanted to practice. In April that year we did the school musical, "My Fair Lady." Darin recieved a bigger part than I did and honestly, I was pretty bent. In May we went to the ITS (International Thespian Society) convention in Denver. We did not perform, but I had put together enough points from other productions to become a member. Soon after we returned we did a production of the 16th century morality play, "Everyman." I don't know what Twink was thinking, it was awful. I was the stage designer for it. The first night 11 people came, the second night 8 people came, no joke. My friend Colleen actually looked right into the audience at one point and said "F*** this" in the middle of her ridiculously long Elizabethan monologue. You could hear her Mom cracking up backstage.

Darin turned 18 in late may about two weeks before he graduated. Dad made good on his rule that we had to move out on our 18th birthday and Darin got an apartment in the Springs with a friend of his and lived there for a couple of months. This caused me a problem though. When I considered this rule....Darin turned 18 two weeks before he graduated, John turned 18 5 months after he graduated....but my birthday is March 4th. Do the math, that sucks!