For the past several years, Windham Christian Academy has hosted “Grandparents’ Day”. Windham Christian is the school where I teach, where the LOL jugglers are based, and where our daughters have all attended. Our youngest, Rose, is currently in the sixth grade there. Grandparents’ Day is an opportunity for grandparents and other senior friends to join the kids at school. In the past we have had themes such as “Country Hoe Down” (complete with intergenerational square dancing) and “Carnival”.
This year’s theme was “the 1950’s”. The gym was decorated with old record albums, there was a soda fountain where students and guests could get root beer floats, and waitresses and waiters dressed in 50’s garb served hot dogs and French fries at lunch time. Rose’s grandmother and aunt were her guests, and they enjoyed their day.
LOL performed three routines. We opened our set with “Pebbles”. This is a classic summer camp skit that we have not performed in LOL for several years. Anna played the title role perfectly, and the skit got a huge laugh. After this, we did our routine where, one after another, jugglers upstage each other with things like silly string, bicycle horns, plastic hammers, etc. Only this time, they performed this routine to Elvis’s “Jailhouse Rock” (remember it was 1950’s theme). So today, after a juggler was upstaged, they went into a jail cell toward the back of the stage (crepe paper streamers hanging from the ceiling making prison bars) and danced to the song. Eventually, there were 20 kids twisting to the King in the background as Erik juggling machetes. When he stopped he yelled, “Jail break!” and tore the streamers down. The kids all ran off the stage into the audience and kept the dancing going. Eventually the music faded and, as siren suddenly blasted through the speakers, the dancers all ran out of the gym. It was a lot of fun.
We closed our set with Sam (the 8th grade Sam) doing a shackles escape as St. Paul’s discussion of being set free in Christ was explained by a narrator. Sam did the great job we’ve come to expect from him, and the audience loved it. In fact, we received about $200 in donations toward our trip to Willimantic, CT. We will leave for this trip tomorrow morning.