“Hey! I’m going there,” I said, way too excited, to these complete strangers, who stared blankly at the crazy man who hadn’t shaved in several days. Realizing they might be frightened, I quickly added, “Oh … I’m Gracie’s dad.” But they were gone.
(Sidebar: My wife says I talk too much to strangers. Like last night, we were late for a barbecue and I stopped by Leroy Package Store to get a bottle of Red Cat and ended up talking to the guy at the counter for a few minutes – the guy who grows and sells his own vegetables. Hadn’t seen him for a while. He filled me in on Mike, the kid who used to work there, and how Mike just went off to basic training. Army, I think he said.
I don’t really know Mike at all, but we chatted about him for a bit, then I came out to the car. The kids were singing along with "Smashing Pumpkins." “What were you doing?” my wife asked, all edgy. “Just talking to the guy about Mike, the guy who …” She shook her head as we drove away. Then she made fun of me at the barbecue.)
When I pulled up at Shirley Goodman’s house a few minutes after leaving the grocery store this morning, delivering a bag of ice to keep the ginger ale cold for the Shakespeare Camp final day's performance, I was relieved to see those same two little girls and their mom again. In my world of things needing to even out (see: the "Even Stephen" Seinfeld episode), it was a cleansing moment. So now the little girls and their mom knew I wasn't just some crazy person. Not completely, anyway.
I went onto the porch amid a bunch of elementary school girls, all wearing various colored t-shirts bearing the same bold print and the cartoon cranium. And there was Shirley, dragging a large green cooler out the front door.
Have you met Shirley Goodman? First thing you should know about her is that she’s among the small percentage of legitimately kind human beings walking around our planet. There's no facade. From there, the rest is gravy.
Shirley's a self-deprecating, semi-guileless sort, punctuated with a sarcastic jab. She and her husband Mike have four kids, some cats the number of which I don't actually know, a thundering, lovable mastiff with a urinary tract infection, maybe some rabbits or meerkats or pumas living in her back yard, who knows? You wouldn’t doubt it.
Shirley also has six heads, each going in one of seven directions. It's a trait that endears her to my wife and I, considering that we're familiar with the six-and-seven routine, albeit with half as many kids and, aside from two cats and a mammoth dog of our own, no other pets. (Although, my mother-in-law recently moved in. Have I mentioned that? Maybe a story for another day.)
From my view about halfway up in the Theater of Life (I don't see Shirley close-up every day, of course), she just puts herself out there for others - over and over and over - with a smile on her face.
In her day job (or as some might say, "in her real life"), Shirley Goodman is a special education teacher, perhaps one of the more challenging roles that world offers. People who teach children with disabilities receive a “get in free” card to heaven. If they don't, they should. I, and maybe you, too, don’t currently possess that level of patience.
But what Shirley Goodman does when she’s not drawing a paycheck might be one of the coolest things about her. After work, she volunteers (see: no money) to oversee her school’s drama club. And then there was today, and this week, with Shakespeare Camp.
To fill in some blanks, her little program is actually called Front-Porch Drama. As you might catch from the title, a bunch of young kids, those of her friends, neighbors and other cohorts – I’d guess around 15-20 girls, ages in the 7 to 11 range, and a small handful of boys in that range, too – gathered from 9 a.m. to noon each day this week on Shirley Goodman’s front porch.
As Shirley recently said, laughing, “I call it that because I’m not very creative, frankly. I also call a pencil … a pencil.”
This week on the Goodmans’ front porch, my 9-year-old daughter learned a lot.
* What was it like to be alive in Elizabethan times? Life was hard, and it was short.
* Mrs. Goodman showed them status gestures of the era – the bows and the greetings.
* They worked through the famous “speak the speech, I pray you” scene from Hamlet.
* They learned what Shakespeare was not (“whatcha talkin’ ’bout, Willis Shakespeare”) and what he was (“it’s Greek to me”).
* The kids were given food recipes from the Elizabethan era, then asked to put on a sort of Food Channel program, as they would imagine it might go (my daughter spoke the most about this activity).
* There was an activity centering on the play "The Tempest," after which they sang a song in the round, called, “Man’s Life a Vapor, Full of Woes.” ("He cuts a caper, down he goes! Down he, down he, down he, down he, Down he goes!”) At least the tune is upbeat, if not the lyrics.
* And they played games, making all this stuff I trudged through as a college student – yes, a British literature major, in the early stages – much less daunting and much more fun.
Years later, I’d read, on my own, the complete works of Shakespeare, coming to the conclusion that he remains today the world’s greatest writer. Ever.
Shirley Goodman doesn’t know I think that, but I’d guess she'd agree, at least in part because, in another lifetime, she received a master’s degree from New York University in education theater. Before Mike and the minors and the mastiff and the meerkats, Shirley did regional theater and a little bit of professional acting.
She travelled to England to study the stuff, then came home and sang with the Tri-Cities Opera choir, spent time with the Cider Mill Playhouse crew and the semi-professional New Heights Theater. She even did a one-woman show based on the popular book “Women Who Love Too Much,” called “Women Who Sing Too Much.” (Yeah, she’s funny.)
So, thanks to Shirley Goodman and people like her. They deserve a bottle of Red Cat (or two), and a huge thanks from people like us.
And now for something, well … from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. (Yes, Rush likes Shakespeare, too.)
You Speak Shakespeare ... As You Like It
Still not interested in Shakespeare? You’d never read that garbage? Too boring? Oh, really?
I found the bit below online. Might surprise you. Take a look. We're all unwitting Shakespeare citers:
“Without rhyme or reason," if you are "in a pickle" because you have been "eaten out of house and home" and even your "salad days" have "vanished into thin air," you are quoting Shakespeare.
You've been "hoodwinked" and "more sinned against than sinning." No wonder you're not "playing fast and loose" and haven't "slept a wink" and are probably "breathing your last." It's "cold comfort" that you're quoting Shakespeare.
If you "point your finger" at me, "bid me good riddance" when you "send me packing" and call me a "laughing-stock," "the devil incarnate," a "sorry sight," "eyesore," and a "stone-hearted," "bloody-minded" "blinking idiot" and wish I were "dead as a door-nail", then I would say that you possess neither a "heart of gold" nor "the milk of human kindness," especially considering that we are "flesh and blood." (Yep, all Shakespeare.)
Now that we have gone "full circle" and you are still waiting with a "bated breath" since I have not been able to make you "budge an inch," it is "fair play" for me to quit this sermon since Shakespeare himself taught me that "brevity is the soul of wit."
It's a "foregone conclusion" that we all speak Shakespeare's language.
No comments:
Post a Comment