Watseka, Illinois:

Watseka was the first truly unauthorized road trip. Let me digress; this story goes way back. Throughout all four years of high school, I was active in various school choirs. I was in the varsity show choir during my sophomore and junior years, but for some reason I chose not to participate in that choir during my senior year. It turned out to be a moot point, as I crashed my car and broke my arm in October of my senior year. With a broken arm, I wouldn't have been able to participate anyway. But still, I was friends with everyone it the choir, as I love them all, and I was one of their most vocal supporters. So it was natural that I wanted to go to the big show choir competition in Watseka, IL which was held at the end of the fall trimester of 1993. We had participated in this competition during my junior year, and I remember it as one of the most exciting and fun times of my high school career. Performance art is wonderful; the exhilaration and anticipation before a performance combined with the rock-solid determination that you are completely prepared, knowing that you will put on a fantastic performance, is unmatched.

Alas, this year I would not be performing with the choir. They were more prepared than the year before, and had an excellent set to perform, so I knew that they had a good possibility of placing in the competition. There was a complication, however. My parents were pissed at me for crashing my car, and considering that my arm was in a cast, they didn't want me driving to Watseka. I couldn't ride in the school bus like everyone else, because I wasn't actually in the choir. I didn't want to ride on a bus anyway, I wanted to drive.

So on one particular saturday, when my sister and I were the only ones home, I threw some stuff in a bag, told my sister I was going to Watseka, and drove off. I called my Mom from a Hardee's in Peoria, and told her everything was cool and that I was going to Watseka. I drove the rest of the way there on bogus two-lane roads, and eventually found the high school in this small eastern Illinois town.

During the day, our show choir scored good enough to secure a place in the top ten. The best ten groups were then scheduled to perform again in the evening before a huge audience to compete for final ratings. My choir's evening performance was dynamite. They gave it all of their effort, all their hearts. As the final rankings were read at the end of the night, with all of this fine choir and myself sitting together, we waited with increasing excitement and anticipation as the lower ranks were read off. Finally we were thrilled to find that the choir had placed third, which was a fantastic and greatly hoped-for accomplishment. The team that came in first place dropped (and broke) their trophy, which was unfortunate but undeniably funny. Our choir proudly brought our trophy home.

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