Saturday, August 28, 2010

Middle School Impressionists

I admire and enjoy the performances of impressionists with their amazing talent to imitate voices, facial expressions, and mannerisms of others. Everyone has their favorites, and I like them all: Frank Gorshin, Rich Little, Eddie Murphy, Fred Travalena, Frank Caliendo, Brad Zinn, Billy Crystal, etc.

Our middle school has budding impressionists working on honing and refining their skills, and a speech therapist told me of one of them performing in her class on Thursday. It seems one of the impressionist's cronies desired a break from school for an hour, and the crony convinced her to pretend to be her so she could skip class. It didn't work. There are only three students in the class, and the speech therapist was able to discern the difference. Of course, a speech therapist in a class of three would be a very tough audience.

I admire the hutzpah it takes to take on a job like that, and though she failed to convince her audience, I wonder how many successful attempts this impressionist has pulled off.

Every now and then I have a thought, and I have one right now. Is it possible to flunk speech class by not talking?

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