That's Entertainment

One of the most fun aspects of Eastern Star events is the entertainment. Since almost all of it is home grown, the level of professional presentation varies widely. Let's just say that the outcomes can be, oh what is the word, unpredictable. Of course, the best part is that you are entertained either way. If they get it right, you have a good time. If they get it wrong, you have a good time. Even the entertainers are having a good time. After all, how many times in life can you stand up and make a complete fool out of yourself in front of a hundred people for free. (People who get paid to do that don't count.) So at one Official Visit, we had a lovely series of songs that were sung for our enjoyment and I suppose you can say that they were all successful because we all enjoyed ourselves. But on one of the songs, the accompanist and the singer got a little cross wired. I think that the piano player went from page 1 to page 4, while the singer went to page 2. The singer had a great sense of humor and timing and managed to get the song back on track and the audience amused all at the same time. He was great! And we all had a good laugh. Of course, that was more fun than when I got to be part of the entertainment on Sunday. Sunday was the Grand Assembly Session for the members of the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls in California. The session was held in the Fresno Convention Center which is an arena style center (they also play hockey there, don't ask me how I know that. :-) and the stage is set up at one end and the girls sit in the seats in the stands on the other three sides, making sort of a rectangle. By tradition, there is a time set aside at their session for dignitaries to come and lose their dignity for the entertainment of a thousand teenage girls. Another way of putting this is that the State Officers and Leaders for Eastern Star and Amaranth and a couple of other groups come and get introduced and greeted at the Sunday afternoon session and then the Eastern Star Grand Officers usually perform some sort of short entertainment for the girls. I wonder how come the officers from the other groups don't have to provide any entertainment. What is up with that? Anyway, in years past, the Eastern Star Grand Officers would do a song or a skit or something. This year we were allotted six minutes and we could be shorter, but not longer. Now if you think that six minutes is not very long, see if you can hold your breath for that length of time. It is also pretty long if you are trying to hold ten pound weights in your arms at full extension or if you are trying to outrun a car. But the longest six minutes of your life is entertaining a bunch of teenagers when people usually pay you not to sing. Thankfully, the plan put together by our saint of a Grand Marshal involved only minimal singing and that was only of a song we've been practicing all year as our Closing Ode at meetings. But in order to fill in the rest of the time, it was decided that we would line up on the floor of the arena, facing the stage area and then all of the ladies would lift up their skirts and petticoats to reveal their bloomer pantaloons which had letters sewn on them that spelled CA OES loves (a heart) RAINBOW. The problem is that when you want to spell something, you have to line up in the right order and if you want anyone to be able to read what you are spelling out, it helps to line up from left to right. It doesn't work so well the other way. So first we faced the stage and picked up our skirts and petticoats and showed our pantaloons with their letters on them and yelled out California OES loves Rainbow. We did that part okay. But then we had to run to the side and face the side and do it again, and then turn another ninety degrees and do it again and then once more for the last side of the room. Because I love my Sisters and Brothers, I will not try to describe exactly how this went. Let us be merciful and just say that no animals were harmed in the making of this production and that eventually, each side of the room saw our pantaloons in the correct order of letters and even reading the right direction. After flashing our drawers to all and sundry, we then sang one verse of Wonderful World and were then mercifully allowed to go back to our seats. I suppose it was all worthwhile because the girls loved it and clapped and cheered, so we did a great job, but if there was ever a moment in my life that I wished that I was a drinker, well, I would have gone for a double right then and there. Too bad I don't really drink, darn it. I have nothing to wash away or even cloud the memory. Alas! I will just have to add this to my list of stories that will be hilarious about ten years from now. Funny how that list has been growing all year. Next week, we are get to stay home so I will be finishing my spring letter to my girls and getting 200 envelopes stuffed and mailed out.