Cinderella 96

So I used to do a lot of Community Theatre when I was in school. Cinderella was one of the very few productions I wasn't involved in at all. That's because at this time I was up to my neck in preparations for our school's production of Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. In addition to starring as the Narrator I was designing and making most of the costumes. (That's what happens when you're the only 3rd level drama student in the whole school and the teacher is your next door neighbor.)

But John was in that production. That's TJ, John, Chris (someone from school I don't remember) and Susan. At that time TJ and Susan were the directors of the theatre.
Mom, daddy and Shiloh were in that production. Mom played the fairy godmother. I did come to see the show every night it played. I think this was closing night. (Sidebar: Please don't laugh too hard at the "Rachel" cut that I'm sporting. It was 96, everyone was doing it.)

Will was in that one too.

Okay now I have to tell you about John. I met John through Will actually. They went to school together and Will started bringing John to church. John became an equally great friend and one of the guys that's still like a brother to me. Most of the best memories I have of John (and there are a lot of them,) but really the ones I like to look back on the most are from summer of 1995. There are two events that really define that summer for me. The first was that I got grounded for two consecutive life sentences. It happened because my parents were out of town and I wasn't supposed to go out. But I did. With Danny. To top it off, I broke curfew. So boom. One life sentence of grounding, thank you very much. A week later, while mom and daddy were out, I wasn't supposed to have anyone over. But I did. (Danny again.) When mom called home that evening (and someone snitched that he was there) I very shortly got grounded for a second lifetime.

The funny thing was that it turned out I was really only grounded from Danny. If anyone else wanted to come over or go out, it was no big deal. That's where the second part of Summer 1995 comes in. I spent the rest of that summer running around with Corey and John in Corey's beat up old Ford pick-up. It only had one seat, so my greatest memories are of riding in the center, bare feet up on the dash. We all had part time jobs that year, me at grandpa Doc's clinic, John at Hardee's & Corey mowing lawns at some big company. But whenever we weren't working we were always together. I don't know what everyone else was doing that summer, Will, Rodney, Shiloh, or the rest of our group, but the three of us were totally inseperable. It was fun. Way too much fun!