Young and Foolish

Memories of the Junior Play
by BILL COOK

Click Here to listen to the cast singing Young and Foolish

hen I look back at my years as a teen, there are events that seem to remain very vivid for me. I remember the 8th period in the auditorium practicing with the Southside High band and orchestra; I remember Ruby Lee's science classes where we learned a vacuum was "all pushee and no pullee" and I remember getting "sat" on a drinking fountain as a Freshman by Senior Marty Cole.

But most of all, I remember the plays and most memorable of the plays for me was the Junior Play, Brigidine, an original musical written by Robert Lynough, our drama coach and play director.

I had a front row seat for Brigidine. They called me the music director, but my real job was just sitting there in the pit at the piano accompanying the cast to great tunes like Young and Foolish, I Whistle a Happy Tune, and All At Once You Love Her. Classmates Bruce Silvers, Eve Crittenden, Maylon Flood and Carol Fitzpatrick were naturals - all with great voices and fun personalities and it was easy to play behind their lead as they sang their hearts out up there on the stage.

Jim Orsillo, our sound director, recorded Brigidine and a number of us were fortunate enough to get copies of it. Mine is in several pieces and each time I put it in the tape player, it seems to break apart in a new place again. But I've been able to salvage the reprise tune Young and Foolish which was sung by the entire cast during the curtain call. At the end of the performance, Bruce introduced some of the "behind the scenes" folks and also our director, Robert Lynough.

I hope you enjoy hearing it again. If you were there for the performance, listening to it, even in its somewhat strained quality here is almost like being there again. No tears, now, darn it.

click here to