Talent Show!

CJ was a good friend tonight in coming out to the Arlington Middle School Talent Show to support his buddy Sean.  That's Sean in the middle with the kilt.  He was awesome with the bagpipes tonight.  How many 13 year olds do you know that can play the bagpipes?

Sean and CJ

I hate to admit it, but I was groaning a little as I'm rushing home from work to take CJ to the Talent Show this evening.  I didn't know about the event until today.  I was thinking about all the work that I needed to finish up and how I really didn't have time to do this.  Blah, blah, blah.  What an idiot I am for even thinking that way.  Navy Personnel Command is like a treadmill.  There's always work and it's always gonna keep going.  It never stops.  But these teenage years are gonna zoom by like the blink of an eye.  Parents need to remind themselves to relish their time with their kids.  Me included.  You see, during the Talent Show two years ago at the Busan Foreign School, I was a grump-butt and didn't go.  Well, I went, but I didn't go inside for some no good reason.  Dumb Chris.

I think CJ was glad that we got to do this together tonight.  One of my favorite things these days is just chatting w/ Ceej at night before he goes to bed.  No particular topic.  Just whatever is on our minds.  Inevitably, we end up laughing about something.  It wasn't that long ago where instead of laughing, I'd find something to nitpick on or to get mad about.  Who wants that kind of talk?  So anyway, you have to take advantage of the fun stuff.  And tonight was one of those times.

The Talent Show reminded me of a couple of things.  Adele is still popular, playing a guitar is still cool, and youth is still king.  The reality is, not everyone on that stage can be a superstar.  But you can go out there and give it your all - whether it's shuffling around a deck of cards for some magic tricks, tap dancing your little heart out in your leotards, or making beautiful sounds spill out of a bagpipe.  It's all good.  Some of those kids were terrified on that stage.  But they got out there.  AND THEY DID IT.  They deserved every single clap and woot-woot from the crowd.  It was heartwarming to hear the positive audience response for every act, no matter if a falsetto note was a little off the mark, a piano stroke off timing, a magic trick inadvertently revealed, or a microphone left in the off position.

I couldn't help but sway to the music and smile at the brashness of it all.  How many times has fear stopped us from saying something to the boss or maybe asking a question in a public forum?  How many times do we hold our tongues anytime there's a crowd?  Maybe we don't even answer the phone because we aren't ready to talk to the person on the other end of the caller ID?  No such timidness from the kids of Arlington Middle School.  Bravery and brashness is what I saw on that stage tonight.  And I loved it.

We had dueling violinists, tap dancers, a magician, guitarists, pianists, and of course some impressive vocalists.  We even had an original number from a New Orleans Saints fan crooning on her favorite football player - the not-so-heralded number 16, wide receiver Lance Moore.  Lance would've been proud.  And what a nice treat for me for the final act.  It was one of my favorite songs, Randy Travis' "I Told You So."  Really good stuff.

So I take back my previous statement.  They were all superstars tonight.  And to think that I almost didn't come.  Dumb Chris.

Yeah, it did bring back some memories from my own Talent Show many moons ago.  That's when the Fil-Am Rockers brought down the house at Kellam High School in Virginia Beach with an awesome breakdancing performance to the song, "Breaker's Revenge."