Thank You Puberty

It seems like everyone has a tale to tell about that moment. That moment when a younger version of yourself realizes for the first time that you are changing. You are well on your way to manhood/womanhood (please choose one only).

This is not that story.

Did you know that Mariah Carey used to not be astronaut diapers crazy? Believe it or not, there was a time when her music videos showed a rather normal Mariah, one without hair weaves or unnaturally curvy curves. She had crinkly curly hair and wore blue flannel and sang her songs in a field. This is the Mariah that I will be talking about.

The elementary school that I went to felt it necessary that every grade put on some form of musical program. Perhaps they thought this would be fun for the kids, or maybe they wanted to give all of the teachers a chance to open all the classroom windows and chain smoke for an hour a week. I'm not sure what the teachers did once we left because I had the misfortune of being one of the students.

In fifth grade, our pageant had something to do with heroes. I'm thinking that there was some sort of montage dedicated to firemen/police officers/soldiers/janitors/bag ladies/jurors/professional plasma sellers/ eagles/ mad scientists/ and maybe teachers, but only if there was time. Our big finale, though, is the central figure in our story.

Mr. Cook was our principal. After three long years at our school (the school was newly built) dealing with us holy terrors, he decided to throw in the towel occupationally. It was the year I was in fifth grade, so everyone was making a big to-do about how he was "graduating" with us. This was a funny term for this because neither one of us were doing this. He was retiring and we were getting ready to face the dark horrors of sixth grade and junior high.

The last song was dedicated to him. While we sang it, pictures of Mr. Cook were projected onto the back wall in some sort of "this makes it look like he died but he's only really retiring" fashion. The song, though, this is the important part.

For a few weeks previous, whatever we'd be working on would be stopped once or twice a week so that we could shuffle to the gym (and try to get away with yelling in the hall) to practice the fifth-graders program. We'd be told to sit on the floor and be quiet (we were only capable of one of these) and everyone would do so. Most people would sit with their friends and I would sit by myself, which was common. I wasn't the weirdo who talked to his self at recess while simultaneously picking stucco off the walls and boogers out of his nose. No, I just didn't have many friends.

There we'd be, sitting on the floor in a loose group of friends or not-friends, and whoever was in charge of the program would explain what we would do today. The thing that we did every time, though, was work on the last song. It was the finale, and it was about Mr. Cook, so it must be flawless. The song, you may be guessing, is Hero by Mariah Carey. It goes something like this "And then a hero comes along/With the strength to carry on/And you cast your fears aside/And you know you will survive." Apparently Mr. Cook was this type of hero, which was news to me. I though this type of reverence was reserved for the likes of firefighters/police officers/septic tank cleaners (see previous list), etc.

I didn't really care though, because it gave me a chance to sing.

I didn't wear pink, nothing in my life was "faaaaabulous", and none of the boys in my class made me feel funny, but I liked to sing. I liked to sing a lot.

I read somewhere that Mariah Carey has a vocal range of some 2 million octaves (or somewhere around there [just go with me on this] ). Her higher registers border on the silent dog whistles that you see in movies and TV shows but never encounter in real life (this is, at least, my experience). She hits all of these high notes in the song "Hero."

And so did I.

In hindsight, it was probably good that I was sitting alone in the gym. When Mariah would hit a note that peeled the paint from the gym walls, so would I. I matched her note for note. These days I have a smoky rich (ahem) baritone voice, but in 1995, well, my voice did not match the wispy mustache that had already started growing beneath my nose. The fact that I could hit these notes was very pleasing to my fifth-grade self, as I still entertained the idea of being a professional singer. The coming years would effectively lower my range, and I would no longer have the castrato tones.

It's not that big of a deal because I couldn't pull off the "man singing like a woman" music niche quite Freddy Mercury or Mika.

That's probably because I don't like boys.