Bryan’s Ramblings

Few places house as many childhood memories as a local community park. Of course, a childhood home, a school, and perhaps a grandparent’s house would likely top the list. However, a community park is a close second for sure. For me, that place is Borchard Park, spanning my life from my early youth until this very day. I’m proud of almost everything I did there (soccer, baseball, basketball, summer camp and other various activities) and only slightly ashamed of a few things that happened there from my more adolescent years (like playing Magic the Gathering and making out with girls).

My earliest memory of Borchard Park consists of being taken with my mom to her Jazzercise classes and being dumped into a room full of children and a couple of semi-clueless supervisors tasked with watching all of us little pistols while our moms jumped around to various 80s songs. I actually can’t even recall if my sister was with me, though I think she was. I do distinctly remember playing the same thing every time: spaceship. The pine tree in the corner of the fenced in outside area became my personal spaceship and I remember bossing other younger kids around as my crew. Even then I was an egotistical prick.

Later on I remember numerous summer camps there where we played games like “Capture the Flag” or “Kickball”. There were a ton of very creative, great games and a share of fun friends as well as utterly annoying kids. Still, it was a fun time. I remember the preschool-like classroom where we would often have a break, eat a snack, and listen to a story or something. That part of the park defines that “era” of Borchard to me.

Let’s not forget the “playground” there either. The great metal slides and monkey bars have been long since replaced by lame plastic tubes and ropes, but I remember every piece of it as if I played on it every single day. I can’t even name all the kids I played with on those things.

Of course, I soon graduated from kiddie stuff to heavy duty recreation like youth soccer and basketball. I was pretty bad at sports. Regardless, most of the games happened at Borchard. The soccer field is so engrained in me that I have a hard time thinking back to my pee-wee soccer days when we played elsewhere. With basketball, I hardly remember when we moved to playing at the high school. To me, Borchard was the place. While I never did play baseball there (that was at the junior high school), my sister had many softball games there, and I kept score at virtually all of them. I remember many sunflower seeds and Ring Pops during those games, as well as red pencils, screaming parents and crazy umpires. Ah, memories.

Finally, I’ve come full circle to be playing softball on those same fields myself, this time with my co-workers. Being there is such a trip. That place holds so much of my childhood that it is very strange to be there as an adult, seeing as how much has changed there. (The Oaks Mall is another place that comes to mind as far as great change over the years.) Maybe one day my own kids will build memories there, or at some other ever-changing park. For now, though, I’ll just continue the tradition and enjoy softball as long as I can.

Either way you slice it, there is politics in theater – especially community or school theater. The people who are in the inside crowd nearly always get cast, and you really have to work and “pay your dues” (read: kiss lots of ass) to be let into that crowd. For those who really love theater, it’s of course completely worth it. However, for those of us who consider theater a passing hobby or an occasional creative outlet, it just seems like pulling teeth to get into a show.

When I was in high school, I was in the drama/theater circle, and I started my freshman year – kissing the asses of my teachers and also the seniors. By my junior and senior year, I was ruling the department along with my fellow insiders. We had really worked our way up the theatrical-political chain to the point of truly being the kings of the theater department. We got the leads, we made the calls, we ran the show.

Then, after being the big fish, I left that small pond and jumped into a different small pond (slightly larger) and shrank in size again. In college, I had to start all over – only I wasn’t that heavily involved. I was a Computer Science major; this was the total opposite side of campus, not to mention brain. So I auditioned for one show, didn’t get in, and pretty much gave up. It wasn’t worth it. My career in theater was over.

Or was it? I didn’t do a show again, acting or crewing, for five years (maybe six), and it didn’t seem to matter. Until that fateful day when I said “sure” once and “why not?” a second time and I found myself in not only a small Halloween show, but in the ensemble of a musical. This was one of those rare cases where I was on the inside crowd by association. I didn’t work to get there really, I was just close to the people who did. So I walked right in, until the day that I couldn’t anymore, and I haven’t done a show since.

Now, I don’t need theater as much as some people I know (like my sister), but I have that bug occasionally as I watch a live performance or sing in my car. It’s not that I’m particularly great at it, or that I really even enjoy the false sense of camaraderie that being in a production brings. It’s just that sort of creative buzz that I get from being involved in the whole process just a little bit. I’m too practical (and untalented) to make that a living – but it’s a nice escape from my too practical life.

All I’m saying is I wish I didn’t have to keep playing the games to get involved. I have to start up that theatrical-political ladder again, somewhere/anywhere just to have a shot at keeping my creative juices flowing. That’s why I always ramble about starting my own theater company – but of course, that’s just as much work or more as trying to be a true part of an existing one. So, I’m probably doomed to a life of simply singing in my car, but at least I often have a chorus with me…and they’re more theater crazy than me. That’s a scary thought actually.

Well, I still have my piano, and writing, and softball, and…school, I guess. And work, right? Oh man – I think I need to take up knitting or something.