Li'l Scab-ner

My freshman year of high school was a watershed year. I temporarily broke out of my awkward phase of junior high and signed up to be in the musical production of Li'l Abner. I auditioned for the part of Daisy Mae with U2's "Zooropa:" a poor choice, given that I do have a singing range beyond three notes - but at 15, I didn't know any Broadway stuff and I didn't know about singing from your diaphragm. So, in a nutshell, I didn't land the Daisy Mae part - or any part - that year. I was a random hillbilly. Being a random hillbilly was harder than it seemed. We had to do some sort of modified hornpipe/can-can dance move, which involved some spinning and tumbling. They paired me up with this boy Fred who couldn't dance his way out of a paper bag, which meant we had to work doubly hard at looking like convincing, choreographed rural folk who sang about cornpone.

But there was a perk to being in the background. I got to make up my own costume. Being that it was in the middle of the grunge era, I had many plaid shirts from which to pick, and I did something cool with a shawl, and I slicked my hair with vaseline. I looked like a Dorothea Lange subject, but comic: raw, real, energetic, steadfast: everything I imagined a hornpipin' can-cannin', g-droppin' hillbilly to be. I blended into the scenery, away from the limelight (operated by this kid Steve), the way I liked being in dramatic productions.

Abby D. got the part of Daisy Mae that year, and she had to wear something along the lines of THIS.