Smile, Sara!

Tomorrow night Wifey and I begin our three concert visits, on account of all the acts we like are dropping like flies.  Greg Allman went to Southern Rock and Roll Heaven just last week. Wifey and Loni will drive Downtown together, and meet up with Mike and me for dinner, and then we'll walk over to the AAA to see Hall and Oates, with Tears for Fears the opening act.

I put on some H and O to get in the mood, and one of my favorite songs, from my high school years, came on: Sara Smile.  Unfortunately, it brought back memories of one of the biggest faux pas I ever committed...

I had a classmate named...Sara.  She was a nice, quiet, and nerdy girl -- long brown hair, and glasses.  We were in a few advanced classes together, and was the type that one of those makeover shows could have had a field day with.  But she was always so sad.  Not a little sad, but very much so.

I, on the other hand, was blessed/cursed with a very sunny disposition, and I loved to cheer people up -- particularly the girls.  So each morning as I met Sara, I'd sing the chorus from the H and O song.  At most, I'd get from her a small half grin, and then she'd resume her serious demeanor.

I left for Miami the day after graduation, and since Sara and I had no friends in common, never heard from her or saw her...until the late 90s.  The OJ Simpson civil verdict was handed down, and my office roommate Mark called one evening.  His then wife Gail was a reporter for Channel 10, and they needed a civil lawyer to go on the news and explain how it was possible that one jury, the criminal one, found him innocent, while the civil jury concluded he did, in fact, kill his ex wife and her friend.  It was about 9:45 at night, and the producer called.  Would I come the studio, north of Downtown.  Nah -- back in those days I worked a lot of hours, and I really didn't care much about getting publicity.  No problem, the producer said -- we'll send a news truck to your house in Kendall.

About 45 minutes, there it was -- the old school satellite antenna and all.  Mike and Loni came across the street, and the Ds, probably 10 and 7, watched excitedly, and Dwight Lauderdale interviewed me.  I guess I acquitted myself ok, as the producer called -- would I come to the studio early in the am, for another segment?  Of course, I said -- and did so, with a nice guy named Doug Dunbar.  I had my 20 minutes or so of fame.

A day or so later, I started getting calls in the office from old Levittown friends, now living in South Florida, who had seen me.  One was Sara -- working as a social worker in Broward.  Could we meet for coffee?  We could.

Sara came to my office on Brickell, and we caught up on the past 20 years.  She had never married, and was getting ready to move to Portland or Seattle -- she always considered herself a hippie, and thought she'd fit in well there.  And then she brought up the H and O song.

She said she'd always appreciated how I tried to cheer her up, by singing the Sara Smile song.  But it was tough, she said.  Her father had sexually abused her from junior high until she moved out at 18 -- to never speak to him again.

I immediately felt like the biggest moron in the world.  I was stupidly urging this suffering girl to be happy, and she had a very deep and real reason not to be.  She went on to explain that her mother died when she was very young, and sicko Dad dealt with the loss in that unspeakable way.

I apologized and apologized for my emotional tone deafness.  Sara wasn't having it -- she had appreciated my efforts those two decades before.

And that was it.  We never spoke again, and I have no idea if she ever made the pilgrimage to the land of Grunge.  We're headed out there in a few months -- maybe I'll look her up.

In the mean time, tomorrow I know one concert song will remind me that not everyone ought to smile.  Sometimes there are deeply poignant reasons not to.