Last night I saw “Mamma Mia!” at Northwestern Lehigh High School. Those Northwestern Tigers put on a great show. The girls who played the four leads were fabulous. Their voices, their facial expressions, their energy, and their chemistry made for a fun evening. I hope they all slept well, as their final performance is this afternoon. Sorry, folks, the show is sold out.
Every time I see any performance by kids, artistic or athletic, my mind goes to two places. First is my feelings of hope and optimism for all of these young lives. My wish for them to have wonderful lives sometimes makes my eyes leak, just a little. Which of them will have fabulous careers and great marriages? Which of them will have solo lives filled with joy and adventure? Which of them will find the cure for cancer? Will one of them become president? Of course, all won’t be successful. Some will have failed marriages and dead-end careers. Some will go down the path of addictions. Some may even die of leukemia at seventeen. Ah, there it is. My own daughter, Amy, only made it to seventeen. Maybe that’s why I wish so much goodness for all of these kids.
The other place my mind goes is to nostalgia. Of course! There is a piece in the show about remembering when you were seventeen. I’m the inverse of that now, 71. When I was seventeen, I had so much fun. I loved school and my classmates. I loved my little Corvair. I loved my hometown and my wrestling teammates. I loved having my whole future ahead of me. I wonder if there was someone in the stands, watching me wrestle, wondering what kind of life I would have. I hope so. I think, in these scary times, we all need to think about each other a little more.
At the end of “Mamma Mia!”, the entire cast and crew came on stage to sing “Waterloo”. It was wonderful. There it was, right in front of me. The youth, the energy, the optimism, the potential, the fun. Have wonderful lives, kids! Treat every single day as a wonderful adventure, because that’s just what it is!
A Semi-retired Kind of Life 