THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME COMING

Home Coming-- who will ever find it the same? How could you find it the same? Why would you want to find it anything but the same? Why isn’t it the same?

Well it happened to me this weekend.

I hitched a ride on a twister (my life) and landed safely back in OZ, my hometown.

Funny how I never knew that the fable was switched around before, but it is not that Dorothy wants to get back to Kansas. What she doesn’t know is how to get back to “her Kansas,” the one she had left 30 ago. What she found in OZ was actually home – she had just been gone so long it was hard to recognize. Everything had aged 30 years; people had passed or moved on; city planners did what they do, and before you know it you felt like a stranger in the one place you counted on knowing all of your life.

For some this would be hard enough to head back after 30 years and see what there is to be seen. Have I ever allowed my life to be so simple and to do one task at a time? Please!

I am the King of “Cosmic Multi Tasking,” so I packed as much stuff into a 48 hour round trip tornado ride as I could, I am to be honored by my High School along with 5 other folks from its 55 year history into the “High School Hall of Fame,” the first ever inaugural group. This means that out of all the senior classes of senior classes at Carlsbad High School, somehow someone thought I should be chosen to personify and represent everything that can happen when one does “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” to his discover his own land of OZ!

WOW! What are you kidding me? I was a nobody, a geek’s geek, and guy who was so riddled with shyness that he had to put on layers of bravado each morning before his tube socks just to get to school. I was the top choice to stand up for Carlsbad High, this was unfathomable. It brought me right back to the time in High School in 1980 before we graduated that I was nominated to be “Most Talented” in the class.???

Again… What??? I didn’t think people could even see me, let alone knew I wanted to be an actor when I grew up. But the Wizard had other plans it seems as I did win Both coveted awards over a 30 year time span. Talk about a Bubble ride!!

Coming back to my Kansas, I hardly recognized the place.

The school had tripled in size and as a matter of fact a new gym now stood Dwarfing the old one and this was the reason for the Dedication for the Hall of Fame except they were inducting non-athletes , Math Science, Creative Arts, Business, Education—All the misfits from their respected classes now were asked to stand up on a stage with a rainbow hanging over it and be lorded as their favorite sons and daughters. (Come to think of it, it was a boys club all men and not one woman made the hall of Fames first induction, hmm odd that I did not pick up on that until just now. not a Dorothy in the bunch. Seems a little strange.)

We were the Cowardly Lions in our time.

The Scarecrows.

And the invisible Tin Men.

Now we were standing on a stage before the entire school hearing our credits read off and for the first time ever in being in this space I was not worried if people were going to see me or here me or even like me it was a given. I was the man of the hour (one of six at least) and with it came the respect and humility I had always wanted as a kid.

I then stopped the show… yeah I told you I was packing a lot in this weekend. I had an agenda and I was going to get through this. I took the microphone and said to the class of 2010,2011,2012 and 2013 and all the teachers and Alumni present:

The first step in your Journey is the most important and without that step we would not be before you today trying to inspire you to reach your dreams.

The first step comes from someone believeing in you and I would like to recognize and start a scholarship program in this woman’s name. To the First woman “grown-up” ever to believe in me “us” the plaque reads.

To Monica Hall, our (Drama-Mama) the first grown up ever to believe in us! Thanks Teach- for your straightforward, inexhaustible style of believing in your “kids”. 30 years of the wonderful realities you created because you did something as simple as believe, the sum of all the belief you have given us could power Entire Nations.

Doug Jack
on behalf of the Carlsbad Theater Alumni

More in part two of this tale of back to Kansas, but I need a moment to cry tears for that boy who wanted so much to be the man I am today and stay in this bubble of Joy for a while be back soon!