Secret Daddy Tears At School Concert

May 28, 2010

What gets you all choked up and blubbery?

way too much fatherly emo as Big Brick sings

Big Brick Elementary School, Gymnasium, 1:40 pm

Prices of working at home 'til last possible second, then jamming in a lunchtime run before Big Brick on Broadway, final main-stage choral event of the school year:

No seats, so I have to stand at rear
Horrible post-shower sweat that shows in sodden patches on shirt, front and back, more visible because I’m standing.

Jangly self-consciousness can’t last, though. Maybe five minutes in, while the school-wide chorus works through a tricky rendition of The Sound of Music, the throat constricts and I feel a 1,000-watt glow under the breast bone. Halogen heart, man, like I’d glow at night. For a shlurpy nonce, this is the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard. I want to cry. Gotta cry, actually, and I do, only in such a way that it looks like something else. Worry, maybe, or gas.

But this crying is all beauty and joy. School concerts, damn them, do it every time. We all bring so much – we over-invested parents, extended family, school people and teachers laying their year before us, the kids doing their damndest, all in angel sync – and it's too much. Pater’s cup runneth over.

Wonder how many people in the Big Brick gym are stricken, too. All, maybe. It gets worse, of course, when the first-graders file in and fill the risers. I make sure Girl Child sees me, and she makes sure I see that she sees and breaks off. Kid loves being in front of a crowd, she does, and loves the bestest friends around her and show songs from Les Mis and Annie and Mary Poppins that she first sang in preschool. Our girl is in a better place than I am.

Emo ends with the music, and GC gives me eyeballs and gestures that I should come back to Room 10. What it is, she wants me to sign her out so she can go home early. Super Principal, who’s also pretty cute (yet another thing to like about Big Brick) just made the announcement about special early dismissal, with permission.

Fine with me. Come on kid, let’s go home.

'Fess up -- What brings fills you up with parental joy and brings you to the verge of tears?

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Pater’s Plays

Oh My Papa by Eddie Fischer

International anthem for funny fathers, way over-sung, in number-one hit of 1954. Translated from original German, this is from a Swiss musical where dead dad was a circus clown. Sung by Krusty to father in “Like Father, Like Clown” episode of The Simpsons.

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