Romeo and Juliet Live

In my hometown of Beckley, WV, all the grade schools graduate into just two junior high schools. That means that the 42 kids in my elementary school joined other students at Park Junior High.

In the seventh grade my new best friend, Lynn, was not from my grade school. We had several classes together and were both on the newspaper staff. She was one of the smartest kids in the class and even if she did raise the grade curve, I still liked her. One class where we had the most fun was English, taught by Winnie Shumate.

Mrs. Shumate had a lot of energy, enthusiasm and always encouraged us to be our creative best. We were assigned to small groups and told to summarize William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet. Lynn, Kathy and Jack were in my small group. We decided to make a slapstick Romeo and Juliet play and present it to the class. Lynn was the talented script writer. Kathy and Jack interjected the comedy. I played the part of Juliet and Jack was Romeo. Memorizing my lines was easy. Delivering it so my classmates would laugh was challenging, but even more difficult was the acrobatics I had to perform. Well, it wasn’t written that way.

I was sitting on top of Mrs. Shumate’s desk that was supposed to be a wall. Romeo was kneeling at my feet whispering sweet nothings. Then everything went amiss. As Romeo fought back giggles in his well rehearsed lines, he yanked on my long sleeve. Then he yanked harder until he pulled me off the desk falling onto the floor and on top of him. What was supposed to happen was my loosely attached sleeve would tear away when he tugged on it. We got lots of laughs; Mrs. Shumate loved it and we all got A’s.

About 10 years ago, Tim and I took a trip to see the fall leaves in New England. We stayed with Lynn and her husband in Rye, New Hampshire. The photos of our time together had been printed, put in a box but never sent to her. Today’s gift was to mail the prints to her with a note that reminded her of the good time we had when we visited as well as our acting debut in junior high with Romeo and Juliet.

In Giving,

Robin