Sweet Memories of ‘Nutcracker’ Field Trip

I don’t recall a lot of field trips from my childhood, but the ones I do remember weren’t that great.

They mostly involved long bus trips to see something on the order of sap trickling out of maple trees, a sight that even a grade-school kid in Akron, Ohio, couldn’t find very exciting.

So when Julianna, my kindergartner, came home with a flier asking for volunteers to chaperon a school trip to “The Nutcracker,” visions of sugarplums danced in my head.

Now this was a field trip. It combined theater, Christmas and a chance to be with my daughter for a few extra hours.

It turned out to be one of my more memorable afternoons, though not for the reasons the PTA could have predicted.

I got the feeling this excursion would be no piece of cake when the staff at Ventura’s Lincoln School sent home seemingly hourly updates on the transportation logistics.

More than 250 students and accompanying parents would be boarding buses at 11 a.m. for the drive to Oxnard’s Performing Arts Center. We wouldn’t return until 4 p.m.

Five hours for a play held less than 10 miles away? Blame it on Proposition 13. It cost too much to keep all four buses on standby while we watched the show. So the kids normally bused home from school would return right after the performance, while the rest of us would have to wait.

That was bad enough, but then, as we lined up at school that morning, teacher Julie Blevins announced that she wouldn’t be going with us. She would be driving her own car, she said, because she needed to go straight from the play to class. As I battled my way to my seat, I began to envy her.

I don’t know how those kindergartners would have acted with the teacher on the bus, but without her, they were a swirling mass of hands, feet and rising voices. All except one obedient little boy, who solemnly sat holding his fingers in the air in a V, the kindergarten sign for quiet. Like a monk praying for world peace, he was trying to calm the bus through sheer will, and having about as much effect.

The cacophony, all blithely ignored by the driver, convinced me there was no chance these children would sit still for a 2 1/2-hour performance.

Ballet can be tough going, even for someone well into middle age. And “The Nutcracker” is, after all, ballet, even if the choreographer did throw in a bunch of cute kids in gingerbread costumes to guarantee that his performances would be packed every night with proud parents.

I needn’t have worried. There were enough star-struck faces in the horde to convince me that the Lincoln School PTA-which sprang for tickets for the entire student body--got more than its money’s worth.

In fact, the enthusiasm was touching, if sometimes misplaced. There were cheers when the lights dimmed. More cheers when they went out. And still more when the curtain went up. That made three ovations before the first dancer entered the stage.

The kids were less sure how to respond to the actual performance. At the end of each scene, the music would die down, the dancers would stop, and the students would sit with their hands in their laps, quieter by far than our bus driver could have imagined possible.

The performance staged by the Channel Islands Ballet Company was beautiful--great sets, gorgeous costumes, darling kids, exuberant dancing, the whole holiday package I had been hoping for. There were some missteps, but few in the audience noticed.

Most everyone caught on, though, when the bottom half of a dancer’s costume began unraveling. While the third-graders behind me giggled, a kindergartner soberly told Mrs. Blevins that people must be laughing because the dancer got her scarf caught in her eye.

Happily, the dancer’s partner carried her triumphantly offstage just as it looked as if we were going to see if ballerinas use anything special to keep their tights up.

During the second half of the show, my daughter, who skipped lunch, started an “I’m hungry” whine that was taken up by a couple of her classmates. I gave them my best Mrs. Blevins look and everyone but my daughter quieted down. And when the performance ended, the real Mrs. Blevins had crackers to hold everyone until we got back to school.

On the ride back, after a run-off-the-energy session in the park, the children were much quieter. By the time we pulled into school, dusk was settling in and a light rain was being shaken out of the folds of the sky as a blessing on our day.

Was it tiring? Yes. Was it taxing? Uh-huh. But was it worth it? Let me just say the things I felt and saw will be with me a long time. It is those moments of stolen time in dark theaters and noisy buses that enliven the routine rhythms of family life.

Principal Valerie Chrisman told me she watched one first-grader sitting “on the edge of his seat, swaying with the music the entire time, his eyes just as wide as saucers. I would look over and get the biggest sense of joy.”

The next day, the mother of one of Julianna’s classmates said her daughter had come home and described the show, scene by scene.

She left out the part about the costume falling off, which was just as well. Some things have to be experienced to be appreciated.