Leo = Medgar
Today is the Civil Rights Wax Museum at Leo’s school. My sweet Leo is Medgar Evers. They have to dress up in costumes and give a little talk. When I heard about this assignment I thought Leo would be absolutely horrified. Well, he’s BARELY grumbled about it. Huh? Who is this child?
He has a black jacket and white shirt and Ernie found him an old 60’s tie so we were pretty much set. I talked to him on the phone over the weekend and mentioned that we needed to find some black pants and he said with great exasperation, “MOM, I’ve GOT some…..you know, we got them for some funeral.” Some funeral…yes indeed Leo. I had to leave for work early yesterday so I missed Leo trying everything on before bringing it to school for the dress rehearsal. When I talked to Ernie later he said, “oh Cynthia….you should have seen him…all I can say is POP STAR.” I understood exactly what he meant but later our response really amused me. I mean if most people dressed a gorgeous little fifth grade boy in a suit and tie and he looked great, perhaps they’d think, “oh, he’ll do wonderfully in the business world.” No, our response was POP STAR! That really made me giggle when I thought about it later. I hope that poor boy survives his upbringing!
He missed a couple of days of school last week because of the antique show and so his teacher sent his poster home for the weekend because it wasn’t finished. I got ALL excited that I was going to get to help him with his schoolwork because he NEVER lets me help. So yesterday I excitedly printed out pictures of Medgar Evers---I found some really cool ones. Then I printed out some quotes----using different fonts just in case Leo would prefer Copperplate Gothic to your basic Times New Roman or Helvetica. I know, I know, I’m such a jerk. Of course when I presented all my work he looked at it politely and said no thanks, he got the kid who is the best artist in the class to help him draw some pictures. Well of course that IS much cooler than my internet printouts. Sigh. I love that boy so much. SO much.
So last night we started quizzing him on whether parents could come and see the wax museum. “I don’t think so, no, they can't come” he insisted seriously. He kept that up until this morning when Ernie said he was going to walk Owen to school and stop in and check. Then he said, “oh, I just remembered….you CAN come.” Miraculous memory recovery, huh? I can’t take off work to go but Ernie is going and I gave him the camera with strict instructions that if he didn’t photo-document it there would be a very, VERY big price to pay.
I can’t wait.
Medgar Evers:
Leo (with Ernie at last week's antique show):