Dec. 23: Rosebud memories

I don't know why I remember Rosebud so fondly. I doubt that the people I met there remember me that way. 

Rosebud billed itself as a Christian theatre school way back in the early 1990s. I was a freshman there in September of 1991. I was 18, just out of high school, and very conscious that so many of my fellow Bishop Granding alumni were spending their first week in college getting drunk and getting laid. I spent mine at a Christian camp somewhere where we prayed, read the Bible, sang, and prayed some more.

The camp was probably near Drumheller somewhere. On the way there, we stopped at a restaurant for supper and wound up staying longer than intended after learning that the Canada Cup was showing on TV and Team Canada was playing someone. A guy named Lorenzo found out that, in that same restaurant, some cat named Bishop Washington Ngede of the Power of Jesus Around the World Church was doing a speech there. To his credit, Lorenzo went to hear the bishop speak instead of watch the hockey game.

At the camp, there were Christian Archie comics. We sat through a reading of that semester's play, which was an original script called The Blackleg Miner, which was about two miners who were trapped in a mine. I was an acting major so I was assigned to a guy named Lyle, who would serve as my spiritual and artistic mentor. I was encouraged to keep a diary, where I wrote about my love for God and my sexual frustrations. 

I remember Royal, who was talented in pretty much everything - drawing, painting, singing, acting, banjo playing. He was the ultimate artist.

I remember Serena, an opera singer. I remember James, who had a room dedicated to Star Trek video tapes. I remember Doug and Martini's apartment, which was in a basement somewhere, and I was a frequent guest there. Doug and Martini had two young daughters and, for a while, Doug was my best friend until we drifted apart.

The boys' dorm was the top floor of the Rosebud Hotel. In September, there were four of us up there. Then Peter left to move in with Randall. Then Mark left because he got married to Trish. Then Tyler moved in somewhere else and I had the whole hotel to myself. I trashed it in a completely unChristian manner and I am still embarrassed about that nearly 30 years later.

Outside the hotel there was a ladder that one could use to access the roof, which was flat and so, I decided, was a good place for reflection. I went up there frequently, often with a notepad to work on fledgling writing projects. About seven years later, I took my girlfriend to Rosebud so I could take her up on the roof and we sat down there and we talked for a while and something I said in that conversation made her decide to break up with me.

The girls' dorm was in something called the Legg House. There were two first-year girls there. Norma, who became the school's costume designer and stayed there a heck of a long time, and Suzan, who was five foot nine and three quarters and who had blonde hair and wore black jeans with daisies painted on them. Suzan had perfect pitch and I would amuse myself by playing notes on the piano and making her tell me what they were. Suzan got bored of that game a lot quicker than I did.

I watched the Blackleg Miner pretty much every night and I learned something new each time. I remember the night the playwright was in attendance. I thought for sure she would adore the show, but she didn't, and I can still remember how sad she looked when it was all over.

I remember the Christmas production, which was part variety show and part concert. I really wanted to do some magic for the variety show but the powers that be said I couldn't do that. They wanted me to team up with another actor, a guy named Cam (who was also the school's maintenance man) and do a sort of comedy magic act. I didn't like it; I felt like I'd worked hard on my magic and I wasn't about to let anyone tell me how to do my show. But I let it go and I did the show with Cam and, you know what? It was a good time.

Somewhere in there, I had to go to Calgary to have my wisdom teeth taken out. The whole school gathered around me and prayed for me. A girl named Marie had me sit on the floor and she laid her hands on my cheeks while everyone prayed. I had my wisdom teeth out and I was in a lot of pain and, as I munched down yet another painkiller, I wondered if the pain would have been much worse if they didn't pray for me.

Almost everyone from 1991 is gone now. Mark and Trish are still there. Royal is still there. Norma is still there. The school has changed. There's more stuff, more technology. Its mission has changed too. Just before I got there, the school prided itself on presenting only original material. The scripts had all been written by students or teachers. Now, they were doing old standbys like An Inspector Calls or Cotton Patch Gospel. Since then, they've added audience pleasers like Diary of Anne Frank and Anne of Green Gables. The comedian in me wants to write a play called Anne Frank of Green Gables but that would probably be in bad taste.

The highlight of the year was when I got to headline a show called An Evening with McSleuth. It was a murder mystery that was hastily put together but man, did I ever love that show. I got paid for it, man, can you dig it? Still the only money I ever made from acting. 

 

Sometime after that, the piano player from that show - a girl - and I wound up at Horseshoe Canyon near Drumheller. We were sitting in the backseat of my old minivan and it was late at night and it became clear to me that I could do Saturday night things with that girl or Sunday morning things instead. I did the Sunday morning thing. My friends - my non-Christian friends - scolded me about that later but I was happy I showed restraint and I am still happy I did nearly 30 years later. I know the backstory. Trust me. It was the right thing.

Rosebud had a patriarch - an 80-year-old Christian pastor named Arnold. He looked after the Rosebud evangelical church for years and he was the very picture of the gentle and caring soul. Lorenzo once told me a story about a time when he and Arnold were digging potatoes in the school's cellar. At one point, Lorenzo was standing too close to Arnold and, after freeing his shovel from the pile of spuds, the blade of it somehow sank into the skin between the first and second knuckle of the middle finger on Arnold's right hand.

Arnold didn't break his Christian cool. He didn't yell or scream or swear. Instead, he sucked on his wounded digit for a few seconds and then, smiling at Lorenzo, forgave him for his mistake and said he would be back to help once he'd secured the appropriate bandage.

Lorenzo thought that his time in the potato room was one of the best sermons he'd ever heard. 

I think I second that.