Show business and the Butterbeans

As far back as I am able to learn from Butterbean family history, there has never been anyone who was able to make a career of being on stage.

There might have been a few musicians in the amateur sense. Maybe a couple of us could be allowed on the dance floor if the crowd was not too particular. But for the most part, the world is better off if we stay clear away from stages.

No Butterbean has ever been known to break a leg while performing on stage. In fact, those times when we or our offspring got too close to one usually resulted in disasters involving other anatomical members.

Just last week my grandson came home from cub scouts and announced that he had a pretty good time at den meeting because he didn’t get hit in the face with the dodge ball ball. However, he reported that he fell off the stage. Of course the stage would not be an ideal place to hold a dodge ball sporting event, especially if Butterbean kinfolk were involved.

Apparently, the reason that the dodge-ball athlete didn’t sustain a concussion was that he didn’t plunge clear to the floor in one continuous motion. Initially he fell onto the table and from that level he continued his descent to the floor. The table must have kept him from joining the company of family players who have made the trip to the ER for X-rays after making one from the stage to the floor.

One granddaughter took the legendary flying leap off the stage thinking that I had morphed from a graceless grandmother into the ballerina’s opposite—the dancer who catches her before she hits the floor. Only I didn’t. I was holding her shoes. She flew clear over the top of me, maintaining an adequate swan-dive position all the way to the floor. I have suffered from stage fright ever since.

Maybe she should try moving from the stage to the field, performing future high-jumping feats with the benefit of a sand pit to catch her fall.

Another grandson simply tried to overcome the effects of gravity and calmly stepped off the edge of the stage. He probably had watched way too many cartoons during the period of his life that is between taking first steps and developing depth awareness.
Be that as it may though, there is one little family member who has something that might equate to stage presence. He can impersonate the whole star Wars cast, do whole scenes from Harry Potter, imitate Old Man Jenkins with precision, and conscript the graceless grandma into sewing Indiana Jones costumes.

And, he seems to have the knack for holding a stage. In other words, so far he has been able to negotiate a left entrance and a right exit without falling off the platform or otherwise injuring himself while on it.

I think he has a little trouble with his lines from time to time though. During a recent family birthday party, he was doing an impromptu song-and-dance routine that finished with a sprint and a slide toward stage front while singing at the top of his lungs, “C-A-K-E spells snack.”

Being as he was able to hold the stage, we all applauded.