This season we attended three holiday programs featuring youngsters.
Given the amount of time teachers have to slap their programs into place, it’s amazing how well everyone seems to perform.
We could, of course, wonder why every child sings the same thing for every song. Variation would be nice, soloists, for example, and perhaps a few different carols.
By necessity the selections were secular: no more “Away in a Manger,” or “Silent Night.” Instead, we got “Jingle Bells,” mega-doses of “Rudolph,” and “Frosty the Snowman.” This certainly is a secular season.
The programs timesported me back several decades, at which time the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed eight years straight, from 1946 through 1953, at our very own Immaculate Conception Auditorium.
Let me explain:
Because Immaculate Conception was a parochial school, we took Christmas programs seriously. Soon after our homeroom teacher. Sister Mary Eyring welcomed us back, she went into her “And now it’s time to start planning for our Christmas program” routine.
After a dozen or more weeks of “Silent Night”-ing, we got to perform highly innovative and original presentations. Instead of standing riveted on risers, we stood riveted on the stage, which somehow accommodated every student in the elementary school.
Now, the appearance of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir might not exactly have been that highly trained group from Salt Lake City. Actually, WE were that choir, and some of us misunderstood when our homeroom teacher allowed us to bob for apples shortly before the program. What we got called was the “Tub and Apple Choir.” At any rate, it SOUNDS a little like tabernacle.
Yet, no parent ever failed to believe that his or her progeny weren’t part of the most complete, melodious, resplendent, resonant choir on earth — or at least this side of the Gallinas.
I.C. Elementary had a few painfully simple rules for those choosing to participate in the Christmas program:
€You WILL choose to participate;
€You will be as happy and cooperative if you get chosen to be a shepherd as you would if you were selected to be Joseph or Mary; €When we keep you after school for rehearsal, your parents will be honored, not worried; €If the archbishop shows up, as he has said he might, the first one to spot him needs to alert all the other students, and all of you will say, in unison, “Good eeeeevening. Your Excellency.” Each class made periodic performances in every other class, the high school, then the parents and some years even toured at nursing homes.
Attending this year’s schools programs made me aware of the manifold changes since the forties and fifties.
Not only did the parochial schools begin Christmas planning early, but the entire town did as well. And, with the exception of this week’s cold spell, Christmases were colder back then.
Around mid-January, when Christmas fever had dissipated, we pursued other activities.
Few people had ice skates, so several of us charter members of the Railroad Avenue brotherhood went skating on the Pecos River (yes, the Pecos used to trickle through parts of East Las Vegas), using our shoes. Once we tried gunny sacks.
Wilfred, the kid with the most ingenuity, who’d already read “Tom Sawyer,” helped us survive a turf war when some tough boys from across the tracks accused us of invading their turf–which we most certainly had We were about to be run off when Wilfred whitewashed them. Quite simply, he explained, “Well we heard — from some of the guys in WEST — that you guys from Pecos Street aren’t strong enough to pull us on our gunny sacks.” We used burlap bags and ropes to pull one another; the puller would run along the banks, while the pullee would enjoy the ride. Through deceit, guile, bluff, cunning and even bravado, Wilfred persuaded the tough guys to prove how strong they really were.
As we showered them with assessments like, “Well, I think you ought to pull harder,” we got I good effort out of them, but some of the hairpin turns often brought us close to the weaker part of the ice.
We enjoyed some exciting slipping a sliding, courtesy of the East Side crew.
Unfortunately we did this only once, as the river soon thawed, and later, when we’d promised to return the favor, there wasn’t enough ice to support us.
Looking back, I believe the aftermath of getting dumped into the icy Pecos, or of becoming fodder for the Pecos-Commerce Street crew might have seemed benign compared to the consequences meted out by parents if we had chosen not to participate in the school Christmas program.
And that attitude, I am sure, is shared by lots of I.C. alumni.