Why I Don't Sing In The Chorus Anymore

I was emailing with one of my peeps about the video on my last post and it was suggested that I follow up with this story . I mentioned in my last post that I miss being in a choir and, already having confessed to a couple of incidences in my somewhat sordid past, I figured I would tell you why I’m not in a chorus anymore. So this is the email I sent to my friend:

You didn't say if you like the video or not. I sang in the church and school choir when I was in my teens. I went to All State Chorus, but got kicked out for drinking. I was a 17 year old senior and the selected members met at the University of Georgia to perform before the masses.

A dude name Mike Holston was a football player there and had graduated form my high school the year before. We played together in my junior year. Anyway, a fellow singer and football player, Leon Walters, and I met up with Mike during one of our afternoon breaks. We never went back. Instead Mike and a few of the freshmen football players took Leon and me out on the town. Athens is a college town with sports bars where the players could drink. No one ask for our id's or anything, and it was my first time drinking all I wanted. We played drinking games and just got shit-faced.

The concert was over around 10:30 but we didn't make it back to the bus until midnight. Mr. Blum, our gay music teacher, was beside himself. After he found out we were not dead in a ditch somewhere off campus, he wanted to kill us. Leon threw up on the bus tires and started crying because Mr. Blum was going to tell his mama. I didn't care. I stayed in trouble with my parents all the time anyway. Thus why I joined the Navy as soon as I graduated high school.

Anyway, the kids on the bus kept asking us what we did and was it fun. Shit like that. But, Mr. Blum didn't tell the principal, so we didn't get kicked out of school. I think, to this day, that it was because Leon had a football scholarship to Duke and he didn't want to mess up Leon’s chances. My school wasn't the most successful in developing leaders of the 21 century. Most were doing good to stay out of prison. So Mr. Blum didn't want to mess up an opportunity for Leon to make good. But we were kicked out of the chorus.

So Leon goes off to Duke, gets kicked off the team and out of school for drinking and fighting. He didn't stand much of a chance as his two older brothers and his dad were in prison for various reasons. So the last time I saw Leon was in 1968. He was working for Larry Flynt, the porn king who started Hustler Magazine. Larry was shot and paralyzed about that time and Leon took off for places unknown and no one has seen or heard from him since. Me...I didn't amount to much either.