MAD ABOUT CONTESTS!
When I was six,
I won a prize at a Birthday Party,
for balancing a potato on my head
and walking around a coffee table
more times than anyone else.
I guess that must’ve started it,
because at 7, I earned a Victory Badge!
I remember collecting newspapers
in a little red wagon,
flattened tin cans with a hammer,
peeled the tinfoil off discarded Lucky Strike packs.
I picked them up by the curb
near the street car stop.
I saved toothpaste tubes
tinfoil from Juicy Fruit chewing gum wrappers,
forming it into my tinfoil ball
to turn to my teacher.
They were all “for the war effort.”
And even bacon grease!
Yes, Grandma would pour bacon grease into an old
Eight O’Clock coffee can
and I’d carefully walk the block
to the little grocery store at the corner,
where the “meat man” would weigh it
and write “OK” on greasy piece of butcher paper
to turn into my 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Sterling Price.
(I see that three girls wore their
Victory badges for the school photo, 1944.)
~ ~ ~
When I was 10 or 11,
I got a child’s form of a pool playing game,
a wooden carrom board with mesh pockets on the corners.
The beautiful wooden board sat on a wooden stand.
It came with red and green round flat
wooden carroms.
that slid smoothly across the board.
I would beg Grandma to play with me.
I can see her claw-like nails flicking
the “toy” or “shooter” carrom,
claiming it broke her nails.
I played by myself mostly and got so good
I entered a Carrom Contest at our Grammar School
and came home with a shiny satin blue ribbon.
I pinned it up on the beaverboard walls.
Being a winner felt good.
It made up for a lot of sadness
and feeling like I was never going
to be anybody, unless I did it myself.
It led me to practice and practice and practice
hitting a tennis ball off my clapboard house.
and winning a lot of Tennis tournaments.
~ ~
That led me to instigate my girl friend and I to
form a singing duo
try out for Stars Of Tomorrow on the
newly formed amateur show on WSB-TV.
“Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” they said.
They never did.
But that didn’t stop me from trying.
Even when I was pregnant and past due,
with nothing to do but wait,
I went out to win a prize
for a WAGA radio announcer contest.
I took buses from Decatur to W. P’tree,
in early June, pregnant “as all get out,”
as we said back in the 50’s.
I didn't win that either!
My latest Contest Venture came this year,
from having insomnia at 3 a.m.
and tuning into the BBC radio.
Hearing about a MY WORLD 2" Film Competition .
Films were judged from each continent.
My World of Silent Dreams! - my entry
made the Short List and BBC is still showing it.
Now, I’ve entered the “Be a Walk-On on Mad Men” Contest
(AMC-tv 60’s ad-biz series)
I call myself “Revlon Client.”
I took this photo with a camera remote,
in natural light
with false eyelashes,
peacock feathers,
a white chaise lounge
and a fake fur coat.
~ ~ ~
When I reflect on all these adventures,
I know why I wrote the best song I ever wrote
Hold On To Your Dreams!
and wrote these lyrics
And if you are not a great exception yourself,
Well, then be a small one, at least,
That your efforts may inspire others, as well.
And don't run and hide,
If they seem to be denied.
AT LEAST YOU KNOW YOU TRIED! . . .
No . . . It’s not winning the contest,
It’s the JOURNEY . . .
stay tuned . . .
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