When I was 15 years old, I live a fairly sheltered life in the woods of East Tennessee. I had grown up on a farm amid a close knit family that was kind of great, but not very interested in the outside world. The farm took most of the family attention.

WORK was of paramount importance. Every moment should be practical and filled with a clear idea of what needed to be done around the house and farm, and there should be a clear desire to get it done as efficiently as possible so that the family could move on to the next item on the ever-growing work agenda.

In retrospect, this was the best possible environment for a dreamy, imaginative kid like me. Left to my own devices, I would wander off by myself with the family dogs and have adventures in magical scenarios that existed only in my head. I loved my folks dearly, but never felt they really understood me.

Again, looking back from the age of 50, I realize that they did something much more important than understanding me, the dreamy, distracted kid that wanted a make-up dummy as much as he wanted Star Wars action figures: they accepted me. No matter what cringeworthy idea I had, Dad would first try to talk me out of it, and, since I never would accept a solid bit of advice or wisdom that could protect me from utter humiliation, always accepted my oddity and imagination and gave me the space to explore it, no matter how sore their eyes became from constant rolling.

There was the time that I marched through the house carrying every pillow and blanket I could find out to the back deck, mounted high above the garage below. I covered every inch of the deck with as much fluff as I could. Brightly colored pillows and blankets were on the bottom, while all the whites were on top. In the middle of this billowy stuffed platform, I set up a cardboard box with a tennis racket sticking out of the top. You see, the tennis racket was the important part because without a solid radar antenna scanning the surrounding sky, an airplane or stray dragon could crash into my secret radar station in the clouds causing all kinds of calamity! My sister ruined it. Not only did she shame me for using her favorite blankets and pillows, she pointed out that my radar didn’t have a monitor with the circling line, or even a “PING” like the one in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I left the sky radar in disgust until my Mom made me put everything back where i got it.

Another time, I decided that we needed to put on a talent show for the whole neighborhood. I convinced my neighbor and his two sisters to join my sister and I in the greatest live show that the woods had ever seen! (Not difficult, since it was the first, and as far as I know, the ONLY Live Talent Spectacular ever performed on Leach Circle.) Everyone was assigned a talent, and I carefully curated and directed each performer to ensure peak entertainment value for our audience! I also started working on the marketing with rare diligence and attention to detail for my young, dreamy self. My parents, some aunts and uncles, and even my neighbor’s mom and dad agreed to show up at the appointed time for our talent show!

I used all the cleverness at my disposal to ensure that every performer had a spotlight! I had learned from the Shriner’s Circus that a spotlight was an essential component, without which, an audience could drift off, their attention wandering to anything! I had a Playschool Flashlight that my sister had been given that had a knob on the side to focus the beam intensity! This was going to be a GREAT show!

As I fussed with details, argued with my sister and the sisters of my buddy that lived across the street, the audience began to arrive! It hit me that we didn’t have concessions, so I ran upstairs to the kitchen and mixed all the chips I could find up into a big bowl and offered the big bowl for the audience to share. The neighbor kids parents seemed uncomfortable, this was the first time they had ever been over and they were about to be shown to a basement junked up with 10 years of storage, facing a single cleared off piece of floor. My mom’s sister, my young, cool aunt showed up and, although as usher, I was ready to head to the basement to show her to the wooden step that would be her seat, she wanted to stay upstairs with the adults for a bit longer. I went down and attended to the performers, Ditty was dressed up and would be walking the runway, Kathy was going to dance, my sister Adonja was singing, then Ronnie was going to be a stand up comic. Everything was ready! I heard my older aunt and uncle arrive upstairs. The full audience was here!

I ushered them into the basement, showed them to their “seats,” uncomfortable perches on steep vertical steps, and realized with horror that I had no one to run the spotlight! Fortunately, my Dad agreed to listen to my long, detail list of light queues. (He would miss them all.)

No one seemed to want to share the bowl of chips, I noticed just before I went on. Next time, go with candy!

Most of the performers were trying to back out now, but I wouldn’t hear it. I knew we had to get going. It was now or never!

I gestured for my Dad to shine the light on me, but he shined it right in my eyes, so I had to tell him to lower it a bit.

“Ladies and GENTLEMEN, I sing-songed and gestured broadly. (I was wearing a Dracula cape my grandma made me with a bright orange football helmet with Stars and Stripes down the middle.)

“TONIGHT you will experience the one and only Leach Circus, the greatest show in the basement! FEATURING Ditty, Kathy, Adonja, Ronnie, and myself, Shannon.” (I took a flourished bow that I had gotten from Punjab in Annie.)

The next 20–30 minutes were a cringe-inducing parade of bad ideas, questionable talent, one attempt at doing a vaudeville comedy bit without ever having written any jokes, some decent singing and me lifting toy weights without a shirt on doing my still-in-progress “World’s Strongest Man” act. I realized then that one should probably prepare something to say, and maybe clearly think out acts in advance before inviting an audience.

One performer ran away after their first performance. We lost another to embarrassment at the half way point. The eyes of the audience were unfocused and watches were either being checked often, or the time was asked of others.

It was during the third rambling performance of The World’s Strongest Man that Dad announced that the show was over and called all of our names to take bows despite my shirtless protests that we were not even at the finale yet! Only Ronnie bowed for his curtain call. He had told two funny jokes about fifteen times.

The smattering of applause was intense and it was music to my ears! I felt the audience at that moment and realized that I had seen my project through to a successful conclusion. (In reality, I think my older aunt applauded as everyone else quickly took the steps upstairs. Within 10 minutes, when we went to hang out with the fans and get feedback, everyone was gone; including my folks who lived there!

That is when I learned that no feedback is sometimes the BEST feedback.

Still, my folks were awesome and, once they reappeared later, told me that I did a good job pulling it all together and that I showed a lot of talent for putting on talent shows. Their eyes rolled, they spoke through gritted teeth, but they supported me from then until always.

That night, as I was being tucked into bed I asked Dad, “Was it really that bad?”

“Oh yes, it was definitely THAT bad.” He then laughed, lit a cigarette and closed the door. Dad was the best. As a dreamy kid that was prone to making my parents cringe, I lived a fairly sheltered life in the woods of East Tennessee. I had grown up on a farm amid a close knit family that was kind of great, but not very interested in the outside world. The farm took most of the family attention.

WORK was of paramount importance. Every moment should be practical and filled with a clear idea of what needed to be done around the house and farm, and there should be a clear desire to get it done as efficiently as possible so that the family could move on to the next item on the ever-growing work agenda.

In retrospect, this was the best possible environment for a dreamy, imaginative kid like me. Left to my own devices, I would wander off by myself with the family dogs and have adventures in magical scenarios that existed only in my head. I loved my folks dearly, but never felt they really understood me.

Again, looking back from the age of 50, I realize that they did something much more important than understanding me, the dreamy, distracted kid that wanted a make-up dummy as much as he wanted Star Wars action figures: they accepted me. No matter what cringeworthy idea I had, Dad would first try to talk me out of it, and, since I never would accept a solid bit of advice or wisdom that could protect me from utter humiliation, always accepted my oddity and imagination and gave me the space to explore it, no matter how sore their eyes became from constant rolling.

There was the time that I marched through the house carrying every pillow and blanket I could find out to the back deck, mounted high above the garage below. I covered every inch of the deck with as much fluff as I could. Brightly colored pillows and blankets were on the bottom, while all the whites were on top. In the middle of this billowy stuffed platform, I set up a cardboard box with a tennis racket sticking out of the top. You see, the tennis racket was the important part because without a solid radar antenna scanning the surrounding sky, an airplane or stray dragon could crash into my secret radar station in the clouds causing all kinds of calamity! My sister ruined it. Not only did she shame me for using her favorite blankets and pillows, she pointed out that my radar didn’t have a monitor with the circling line, or even a “PING” like the one in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I left the sky radar in disgust until my Mom made me put everything back where i got it.

Another time, I decided that we needed to put on a talent show for the whole neighborhood. I convinced my neighbor and his two sisters to join my sister and I in the greatest live show that the woods had ever seen! (Not difficult, since it was the first, and as far as I know, the ONLY Live Talent Spectacular ever performed on Leach Circle.) Everyone was assigned a talent, and I carefully curated and directed each performer to ensure peak entertainment value for our audience! I also started working on the marketing with rare diligence and attention to detail for my young, dreamy self. My parents, some aunts and uncles, and even my neighbor’s mom and dad agreed to show up at the appointed time for our talent show!

I used all the cleverness at my disposal to ensure that every performer had a spotlight! I had learned from the Shriner’s Circus that a spotlight was an essential component, without which, an audience could drift off, their attention wandering to anything! I had a Playschool Flashlight that my sister had been given that had a knob on the side to focus the beam intensity! This was going to be a GREAT show!

As I fussed with details, argued with my sister and the sisters of my buddy that lived across the street, the audience began to arrive! It hit me that we didn’t have concessions, so I ran upstairs to the kitchen and mixed all the chips I could find up into a big bowl and offered the big bowl for the audience to share. The neighbor kids parents seemed uncomfortable, this was the first time they had ever been over and they were about to be shown to a basement junked up with 10 years of storage, facing a single cleared off piece of floor. My mom’s sister, my young, cool aunt showed up and, although as usher, I was ready to head to the basement to show her to the wooden step that would be her seat, she wanted to stay upstairs with the adults for a bit longer. I went down and attended to the performers, Ditty was dressed up and would be walking the runway, Kathy was going to dance, my sister Adonja was singing, then Ronnie was going to be a stand up comic. Everything was ready! I heard my older aunt and uncle arrive upstairs. The full audience was here!

I ushered them into the basement, showed them to their “seats,” uncomfortable perches on steep vertical steps, and realized with horror that I had no one to run the spotlight! Fortunately, my Dad agreed to listen to my long, detail list of light queues. (He would miss them all.)

No one seemed to want to share the bowl of chips, I noticed just before I went on. Next time, go with candy!

Most of the performers were trying to back out now, but I wouldn’t hear it. I knew we had to get going. It was now or never!

I gestured for my Dad to shine the light on me, but he shined it right in my eyes, so I had to tell him to lower it a bit.

“Ladies and GENTLEMEN, I sing-songed and gestured broadly. (I was wearing a Dracula cape my grandma made me with a bright orange football helmet with Stars and Stripes down the middle.)

“TONIGHT you will experience the one and only Leach Circus, the greatest show in the basement! FEATURING Ditty, Kathy, Adonja, Ronnie, and myself, Shannon.” (I took a flourished bow that I had gotten from Punjab in Annie.)

The next 20–30 minutes were a cringe-inducing parade of bad ideas, questionable talent, one attempt at doing a vaudeville comedy bit without ever having written any jokes, some decent singing and me lifting toy weights without a shirt on doing my still-in-progress “World’s Strongest Man” act. I realized then that one should probably prepare something to say, and maybe clearly think out acts in advance before inviting an audience.

One performer ran away after their first performance. We lost another to embarrassment at the half way point. The eyes of the audience were unfocused and watches were either being checked often, or the time was asked of others.

It was during the third rambling performance of The World’s Strongest Man that Dad announced that the show was over and called all of our names to take bows despite my shirtless protests that we were not even at the finale yet! Only Ronnie bowed for his curtain call. He had told two funny jokes about fifteen times.

The smattering of applause was intense and it was music to my ears! I felt the audience at that moment and realized that I had seen my project through to a successful conclusion. (In reality, I think my older aunt applauded as everyone else quickly took the stairs upstairs. Within 10 minutes, when we went to hang out with the fans and get feedback, everyone was gone; including my folks who lived there!

That is when I learned that no feedback is sometimes the BEST feedback.

Still, my folks were awesome and, once they reappeared later, told me that I did a good job pulling it all together and that I showed a lot of talent for putting on talent shows. Their eyes rolled, they spoke through gritted teeth, but they supported me from then until always.

That night, as I was being tucked into bed I asked Dad, “Was it really that bad?”

“Oh yes, it was definitely THAT bad.” He then laughed, lit a cigarette and closed the door. Dad was the best.