Word Up: Tell Me, What’s the Word?

Cafetorium. My husband laughed when I told him, “That’s what it was called!” as we were lying in bed the other night.

The cafetorium is where I first saw Cute Boy during a Mardi Gras dance. (He’s pictured here later in the year with Matt Pequet, who was apparently telling him a funny secret.) I don’t remember anyone being in costume; maybe it was only the February date that made it a Mardi Gras dance.

The cafetorium is also where we had the Keywanette and Key Club interclub meeting for which I asked a local taekwondo organization to provide a demonstration because Cute Boy had a black belt in taekwondo. Today is the first time I’ve reflected that it was warped to essentially manipulate a gathering of several dozen people and a group of martial arts practitioners just for more time in the same room with Cute Boy. So let’s not look at it that way.

Many of my crushes started in the cafetorium, particularly when I was rehearsing plays for the drama club (Actors Anonymous). Before Cute Boy, there was Tall Guy Who Portrayed My Character’s Brother and also Yearbook Editor With a Talent for Mimicking Voices. One of my most cherished photographs came from a play “after party” at Mr Gatti’s, where Yearbook Editor and I posed in full makeup and costumes: he with his arms crossed, I standing slightly behind him with my hands folded on his shoulder. (Well, of course he was shorter than I. But so talented!)

My drama club efforts did not make me a better actress for Oklahoma, but I probably didn’t concentrate enough on my role. The cafetorium stage was the site of a lot of flashing and not because of costume changes. Why do you think we nicknamed Tim Dennis “Feel ’em Elam?”

Did you always just accept that the room was called the cafetorium without giggling about it? Do you regret that we won’t be having our reunion dance in the cafetorium? A lot of the memories there have nothing to do with grill marks on hamburgers.