Monday Night Memory

My senior year in high school, let's just say I had joined all the geeky groups--Thespians, marching band, swing choir. I had/have many friends from these organizations. And through these groups, I also had lots of different teachers, often fitting personnas for us geeky folks.

Our chorus/swing choir teacher, who, oddly, did not play the piano, was turning 40. As I am getting close to that age, I cannot believe how old I thought he was. Now that I think about it, I am sure he didn't think he was that old.

Anyway, us seniors, being in senioritis mood and all, thought we would thrill him with a birthday surprise. Most of us being part of band, we also got the band director in on it. We all conspired to get into the high school music classroom and the teacher's office and decorate it with black streamers, balloons and posters.

We were in the high school parking lot as night was falling. We were waiting for the band director to show up. I was hanging out in one of my friend's car. She showed us that her car liked to talk instead of beeping at you if you left the door open and we giggled our way through telling the car that the door was not "a jar" but a door. She flipped on the music and Red, Red Wine came on the radio. She stated that she really liked this song. I think it was the first time I had heard it. It was, I believe, the fall of 1988, which was the year of UB40's re-release of the song when it finally hit number one.

We whiled away more time dancing in our seats to the song, other people in the car singing all the words, me finally getting the chorus and singing it with them. It was a good dance song, and if you couldn't tell, I like to dance, considering I was in swing choir (dancing and singing at the same time) and also dance lessons.

The band director showed up and we proceeded, giggling, to fill the music director's office entirely full of black balloons and caking the room with many a black streamer. To overuse the 80s lingo, "It was awesome."