Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Carrying the Banner...

Ain't it a fine life
Carrying the banner through it all?
A mighty fine life
Carrying the banner tough and tall
Every morning
We goes where we wishes
We's as free as fishes
Sure beats washing dishes
What a fine life
Carrying the banner home-free all!

Oh come on you all know what I'm talking about. I know me and all of my friends weren't the only ones that watched this movie like it was a religion. What moive say you? Why Newsies of course...



Ok I know you are all trying to be cool and pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about, but I know that in your heart right now your dusting off the place that is saved for Jack Kelly, and his pals (you know its the spot right next Johnny Depp in his 21 Jump Street days). And I know that you have a favorite newsie. Come on tell us was it Spot Conlon, Kid Blink, Mush perhaps? Or was it Jack...(the adoloescent in me sighs)



Why bring this up now well, this weekend I visited my family. It was a fabulous little trip, but at one point my sister and I started to chat. We started to joke about the songs that we like to sing with. She made a little bit of fun of the "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" CD that was in my car and then all of sudden we were talking about the newsies, and how we loved them so when we were younger, and how we used to know the words to every song, and then before I knew it there I was in my mommy car with my mommy clothes on and my mommy haricut, and my twenty-something sister and we were belting out the soundtrack to Newsies. Although I must admit that we didn't know the all words to any one song, we did know some of the words to all of the songs. It was so great, I felt like all of a sudden we had just gone back in time ten years (ok maybe 15).

So this post is dedicated to the Newsies, and all of the joy that they brought droves of thriteen year olds girls, and also to my dear friends, which is I guess what this post is really about, because as I was thinking about the newsies I also thought about one of my dearest friends who watched Newsies with me many a time on many a late night sugar enriched sleep over. It seems that adolesence is steadily becoming a more and more frightening stage of life, but mine was not so bad. I came out the other side of adolesence pretty much unscathed, and without having made any major detrimental decisions. Once Shane asked me why my teenage years were so good, and after thinking about it, I really do believe that it was my friends, I was truly blessed with good people to be friends with, and I still am...I can honestly say that my best friend from adolesence is still my best friend, even though she lives on the other side of the country, and we only talk to each other once in awhile during our babies' naptimes. How wonderful it is to share so much history with someone that you know that even if you didn't talk for ten years; even if you became the most important person on the planet. You would still have someone that wanted to eat doritos, drink soda (I think Mtn Dew was the drug of choice in those days), watch Newsies and sing all of the songs with you, until the wee hours of the morning. Even now I know my friend Sara is reading this and hearing the newsies sing "The King of New York" in the back of her head.

MUSH:
A pair of new shoes with matchin' laces!

RACETRACK:
A permanent box at Sheepshead races!

SPOT CONLON:
A porcelain tub with boilin' water!

KID BLINK:
A Saturday night with the mayor's daughter!

RACETRACK:
Look at me
I'm the king of New York
Suddenly
I'm respectable
Starin' right at 'cha
Lousy with stature

Come on go ahead sing it out loud I know you want to...

2 comments:

emlouisa said...

Ummm...can you believe I have never seen Newsies?

*hanging my head in shame*

Anonymous said...

I would like to announce that at one time I preferred David to Jack. Now, it is only Jack for me.