Published: April 24, 2008 10:16 am      

April showers bring May flowers

I can see it as if it were yesterday ... the polished maple gym floor is covered with an Army surplus tarp. Atop it, 125 grandmothers, mothers and aunts sit on metal folding chairs. They’re all in dresses or skirts; some are wearing hats. It’s April 1961, and women dress up, even for a grade-school spring pageant.

The stage is decorated with hundreds of tulips made of red, yellow and purple construction paper. A big paper sun, colored with tempera paints, dangles from the ceiling; streamers of gold crepe paper form ribbons of light. Scores of little kids stand nervously in the wings. They are dressed like tulips, and too cute for words.

At just the right moment, the music starts and the production begins. Kids form a long line across the stage, then kneel. The prettiest little girl in the class then walks along with a big watering can, and pretends to sprinkle them with water. The kids start stretching and rising, as if they are spring flowers, growing, reaching toward the paper sun.

The adoring crowd starts applauding. A teacher, sitting on the piano bench, beats out a melody on the old upright. The children sing, tentatively at first, then louder, then really loud. The same score, probably, was repeated all over District 118 back then. I still remember the words to one of the songs, which once was an Al Jolson hit:

“Though April showers, may come your way,

“They bring the flowers, that bloom in May;

“And if it’s raining, have no regrets;

“Because it isn’t raining rain, you know, it’s raining vi-o-lets.

“And when you see clouds, upon the hill

“You soon will see crowds of daff-o-dills;

“So keep on looking for the bluebird,

“And listening for its song,

“Whenever April showers come along.”

The annual Christmas pageant was staged on a dark December evening. The spring pageant was held right after school, sometime in April.

It was a wonderful break from the dull, humdrum little world of Dick and Jane. For several days, our teacher had us cutting tulips, stems and leaves with our blunt-ended scissors, then using Elmer’s glue to assemble the component parts. We’d rehearse our songs. I can’t remember where the tulip outfits came from. Some were probably mother-made, while others were likely crafted by the teachers themselves. Nothing was store bought.

The theme was spring, so we had paper tulips, paper daffodils, paper rabbits, paper kites, paper robins and paper chicks. There was always a kid dressed up like a rabbit, carrying a big basket filled with fake Easter eggs. We’d sing “Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the Bunny Trail.” Some of the Easter songs had a religious bent, while others focused on the glorious metamorphosis all around us. One began with the words, “Awake, awake, it’s springtime, the gentle breezes blow ... that’s when the earth says to the flowers, awake, awake and grow ...”

Dancing, fortunately, was kept to a bare minimum —usually kids skipping across the stage, dressed in yellow rain-coats, twirling umbrellas and singing.

Most boys were pained by the spring pageant. Spring, to us, meant marbles, bicycles, baseball games and playing Army. Spring brought sunny skies, tree houses and the prospect of summer — three precious months of swimming, firecrackers, shorts, Popsicles and no school.

Just thinking about that was enough to make a boy search the audience, catch his mother’s eye, and sing,

“So keep on looking for the bluebird,

“And listening for its song,

“Whenever April showers come along.”

Danville native Kevin Cullen is a former Commercial-News reporter. Reach him at irishhiker@aol.com.