Middle school choir was brutal, partially because I never was that great of a singer. Plus, I never liked singing all that much. Mostly, though, it was our teacher, Mrs. L, who made the period crawl by. She’d tell us to sing LOUDER, to ENUNCIATE, to SMILE. When we struggled to sing the lines correctly, she’d demonstrate for us, belting them out in her clear soprano before rasping down to her hoarse yell again. She always had a 64-ounce Big Gulp coffee cup that she claimed was filled with water. Suburban middle school legend had it that it was actually filled with Diet Coke.
The day she truly implanted herself in my mind as the worst choir teacher ever was the day I watched the home video of one of our concerts. I was in seventh grade. We had been instructed to wear our favorite shoes to the concert, as we were singing a song called “Shoes” which was all about, of course, shoes. No, seriously, that’s all the song was about. Shoes.
Other than Quentin K’s moonboots, I remember nobody’s specific shoes. We all simply took the opportunity to wear sneakers or slippers to perform at a choir concert. I was in the back row anyway, so what was the point of lacing up anything particularly cool?
The night of the concert, we sang the songs before our big closer with usual lack of aplomb. In her normal performance during concerts, Mrs. L smiled and bounced as she directed us rather than scowling and shouting. After some songs she’d cry with pride. No kidding.
Then we began our unusual last song–unusual because our choir in the small Christian private school nine times out of ten sang religiously themed songs, not songs that glorified footwear.
Being one of the taller people in the choir, I stood in the back row next to JJ. JJ was your average 8th grade middle school dreamboat: broad voice (think eighth grade version of Kronk in The Emperor’s New Groove), confident stride, perfect ear-length wavy blond hair parted down the center. I’d heard that whenever he walked by a certain mirror in the hall, he’d check to make sure every strand was in order. He’d make any corrections with a comb from his back pocket.
Mrs. L beamed as she spastically waved the baton to begin the music, and off we went. While I gamely sang “Shoes” and did the hand motions with lackluster precision, JJ barely opened his mouth during the entire performance. His eyes would dart to the side occasionally, as if he had completely forgotten what he was doing and why he was standing on risers in front of an audience in the concert hall/theater/gym. During the last rendition of the chorus, when we were supposed to be forming a kickline–carefully, mind you, to avoid kicking kids in the row in front of us–his right hand haphazardly rested on my left shoulder, his body vaguely moved in rhythm with the kickline, and his lips barely breathed the words.
Why do I know what JJ looked like? Because my dad, like JJ, kept forgetting why he was there (to record his daughter sing in the choir concert). Instead, the camera kept darting to the right, to the apathetic blond kid mumbling, “This is what life is all about…”
That’s right, we were singing that life was “all about” shoes–borderline sacrilege, if you asked me. And we were doing a kickline. And my dad was (correctly) more interested in the disinterested JJ than his daughter! What kind of middle school choir teacher makes preteens perform such a song?
Sometimes, though, when I’m walking down the street in my Converse, I think that the song might not have been so wrong. I’ve had so many pairs of Converse that by this point, they feel like they’re my shoe. Somewhat paradoxically, I also feel a tenuous connection to others who have worn them–basketball players in the 70s (including my dad), punks in the 80s, alt rockers and rebels in the 90s, anyone who wanted to look “edgy” in the 2000s, my brother, some of my friends, my younger selves. If I had found Converse in seventh grade instead of ninth, I totally would have worn them to the choir concert that night.
But I still think kicklines in middle school choir are inhumane. I’m sure everyone who’s ever owned a pair of Converse would agree.
Libby Stille (’13) lives in St. Paul and works in the marketing department of a children’s publishing company in downtown Minneapolis. She recommends that everyone visit the Twin Cities, but only between June and October, unless you enjoy subzero windchills and slipping on ice.
