It was the spring of 1997 and I was a sophomore in high school. I was in Austin, Texas, with about 25 other classmates from my high school. We traveled down to Austin to watch other schools, large and small, participate in their state one-act play contest. We wished to take up everything we could about state-quality plays after losing disappointedly in the competition circuit a couple of months before. Would you imagine being the theater instructor or among the parents chaperoning this event? With male and female high schoolers ranging in age of 15 - 18 with varying maturity levels and hormones ranging, I didn't envy them. Naturally, it absolutely was an interesting road trip.

Our theater instructor Ms. Murphy had to operate a vehicle one of those school provided white utility vans hauling her share of the youngsters for five hours south on I-35 and around town while another parent did the same. ticket dismissal We were "her kids" since she never had some of her own. We loved playing tricks and mind games with her, almost as much as she liked playing them on us. Annually her house was toilet papered and forked - not because we didn't like her. We loved her. This is exactly why we didn't throw eggs.

I was riding with the group driven by among the parents which wound up being truly a wild ride. We hit several curbs, got lost, drove half way across Travis County the wrong method, and, I then found out after the actual fact, almost ran out of gas! We wound up getting stopped for a taillight out, but because it absolutely was a school sponsored trip, the officer let her off with a notice and she did not need to take a defensive driving course in Austin, although she might have needed it.

After all that, we finally made it to the hotel where more hijacks insured. The next day we went and watched plenty of plays. Some great, some bad, some outright confusing (all plays had to be cut from the initial length to 40 minutes, most were originally 1 ½
to 2). The trail trip down there was not the highlight of the trip, nor were the plays, but I will tell you the thing that was the most interesting part.

The next day the plays didn't start until afternoon, so we piled in the white utility vans again and went along to the neighborhood mall and Central Market. We were moving through the store as an organization when someone pointed out to 1 people with a camera that Harry Connick Jr. and Sandra Bullock were in the store and she should try to take their picture. We did just that. Harry looked like he had just gotten up from bed with some peacock hair, but he was very pleasant and congenial. Sandra looked a little peeved in the picture. She was probably on her behalf lunch break from being on the group of Hope Floats (Fox 1998) being filmed at the time.

I don't remember some of the plays that year, but I actually do remember the trip down there and meeting these two actors at the height of these careers. Maybe it absolutely was a sign, or a swing of good luck, or the just the fact we made down there alive, but we did make to state the following year, much less audience members, but as participants.