----"Hell Week"---- from Tales from Normal---FICTION

Well...It's that time of year again. Yes. It's Hell Week----that special week when the kids in our town are totally dedicated to the annual musical performance coming this weekend. This week the musical is "Beauty and the Beast."

Everything just kinda runs togther this week....the salads, desserts...the kids leaving for school early to some function and then staying after each night till eleven pm or so.

It might be more hell for the parents than the kids, and maybe it is just that after two have gone and finished college, the third seems to be staying out way past my bedtime. Yes. Maybe that is it.

I wondered about it all. And as I always do...I picked up the cell phone and called Herman, in Normal, Mn.. Normal is that famous getaway town north on HWY 10 north of the Twin Cities, and just south of Garrison, Mn.. It is a just a little west of the Land of Lake Woebegone. I just knew Herman could give me a sense of perspective.

"Herman," do you have a Hell Week up there in Normal?, I asked.

"Shucks, Wolfman"( that's what he always called me) about a decade ago we used to have Hell Week. It was awful. Not any more though."

"Whatever happend?" I asked.

"It's real simple. About a decade ago, a man came to town and suggested that we do a musical......"Music Man" I think it was called. Shucks....every man woman and child in town wanted to be in that musical. "

"That sounds wonderful, Herman. What happened?"

"It was awful," Herman exclaimed. "Ya gotta realize that we only have 200 people in town and it took everyone to make it happen. So----when it came for baseball, golf, track and EVERY sport....nobody could participate."

"Whatever did you do?" I asked.

"It's real SIMPLE'------The Athletic Director cancelled all the sports. And they stayed cancelled. Ever since, we have done "Music Man" every year. It has been just WONDERFUL."

I was just stunned. What a simple choice! No stuggle to do everything. WOW.

I got off the cell phone and thought a bit. We sure are lucky to be back here in Wonderful Wisconsinn. Where we can go from morning to night and do EVERYTHING.....even if the bands are asleep and can hardly play....and even if half the sports teams can't show up for events......

After all. It ain't Hell if ya aint makin it so.


Alleluia.