Every year all schools city and country sent their choirs to the Kiwanis Music Festival.
And we were no exception.
I was an alto. I was crap. We were all pretty crap. But our teacher made us all believe that we were a band of angels singing the Halleluiah chorus in front of God. All those fresh scrubbed faces, girls in dark skirts and white tops. Boys in dark trousers and white shirts.
We never came close to winning. Not even honourable mention....as I said we were crap...but so where most of the others so it didn't matter.
We were told to smile while we sang, so we did.
Look like you are happy, so we did.
Look like it's fun, so we did.
The festival took a few days, it was a big event. We took a packed lunch and listened to the other festival participants.
It was fun. I did enjoy it.
I enjoyed it so much that I decided to go again tomorrow. Even though I was supposed to be in school. Even though I didn't ask either my mother or my teacher.
I went next door to my aunts and asked her to pick me up at school on her way to work. She didn't ask why and she did.
I went to school with my packed lunch and told my teacher that I was going with my aunt to the festival. She said nothing.
I went out to the fence and waited for my aunt. She picked me up and dropped me at the church where they were holding the festival.
She said be at her work at 5 sharp. I said ok.
I spent the day listening to the other contestants. I ate my packed lunch and then at 4:30 left to go to my aunt's car, got in and waited for her.
She drove us home and I arrived at 5:30, an hour and a half later than I should have.
No one ever questioned me about this.
And it was a good thirty or forty years before even I questioned...what the hell had I been doing? Why did no one...and I mean no one, ever question that a child and disappeared for a day or two every year and no one asked why.
Now, don't pity me. I used this ruse summer and winter in order to get much needed away days from family and school. I liked to wander. I had started young and I suppose 'they' were used to it.
I didn't question....but you do wonder...what were they thinking............... or perhaps....not?