Life is a combination of art and poetry and music, or at least that is what I tell my kids every day at school. I try to fill their lives with words like Vivaldi, Poe, Emerson, Renoir and Degas. The best way to show them is take them to the art and let them experience it first hand. So we go. The trip is planned, and the night is so cold that my breath freezes in midair making a frosted cartoon caption. It is Saturday night and we have reservations for dinner and the Fort Wayne Philharmonic at the Embassy Theatre. Twenty-two sixth-graders, five adults and one bus.
Each student is dropped off at the elementary under the pale sapphire sky of dusk and the deep, deep cold. I do not recognize the girls. Their hair is curled and swept up with sequined barrettes. The boys are cleaned up with their hair combed and one even sports a tie. I am proud of them and we have just begun the evening.
We pile onto the bus and it is so cold that my bones rattle. Roy, my friend and teacher at the school, is the driver. He turns the heat up as high as it will go but the windows are ice-covered except for the front windshield. He hunches down under his cowboy hat as we wait for the late arrival. (I said I wouldn’t wait, but I did!)
The bus engine actually groans under the weight of the cold as we pull out of the parking lot toward Fire Mountain. I have made a reservation (it is always good to let a restaurant know when 22 kids are coming!) so they are expecting us. Deb, their classroom teacher, gives them the “you know who you are representing” speech before they enter the restaurant and I remind them of hostess tipping.
I watch for signs showing me that they are sixth-graders underneath the glamour and refinement of their clothing, but I see none. They are gracious, polite and quiet, and I am impressed. They eat a balanced dinner although the ice cream line is long and spills out into the restaurant. They return with mounds of frozen ice cream and gummy worms. With dinner over and the tip collected we clamor back onto the school bus and head toward the theater.
Ahhhh, the theater. I see sweet stars of happiness when I say the word. I look back at them playing with their Game Boys, chatting and teasing each other. When did I learn to love the theater? My Dad was an actor with the Civic Theatre in Fort Wayne. Maybe it was because I was the oldest of six or that I already loved the theater, but I was the one who got to go with him every night to rehearsals. I never missed one. I wore my pajamas and slippers and slept through “Auntie Mame,” “The Odd Couple,” “Visit to a Small Planet,” “Oklahoma!” and “The Glass Menagerie” right in the front row. Now I want them to love it, at least the Philharmonic.
We arrive in Fort Wayne and travel downtown. Through the frosted windows I make out the lights of the Embassy blinking in the darkness. I know we look odd, a bus full of children on a winter’s night at the theater. We go inside for foyer where I hand out their tickets. Their eyes are full of excitement. A quick speech about bathrooms and other details and we are inside the theater.
We are early so we have time to look. “Look up,” I say. Our eyes travel to the crystal chandeliers and the winding staircase. I take their photo on that staircase and find our way up to the balcony. I watch their eyes as we take our seats. Their faces are filled with magic. So is mine. The lights blink and then dim. We are there. For two hours we are immersed in the music of Mozart. They sit and let the music surround them. They get the fidgets at the last symphony piece, but it is soon over. With one last sigh we weave our way down the spiral staircase under the chandeliers.
It is late when we arrive home and parents are waiting in warm cars to hear tales of the evening. Sequined barrettes are placed on dressers, ticket stubs in scrapbooks and new memories, from a very magical evening, are stored in the recesses of their minds.
LOU ANN HOMAN-SAYLOR lives in Angola at the White Picket Gardens where you can find her gardening or writing late into the night under the light of her frayed scarlet lamp. She is a storyteller, teacher, writer, actress and a collector of front porch stories.
