My church, and I call it “my” church because East Orange Presbyterian was the closest Protestant church that my mother could get a neighbor to give me a ride to every Sunday, decided to give a minstrel show. I know what you’re thinking, but it was a long time ago, we didn’t know any better, and the nation was young.

Church members with an interest in show business  volunteered for the various roles of minstrelsy,  and rehearsals began on the fellowship hall stage. Maybe there is some sort of widely available, generic script for a minstrel show, for everyone seemed to know what they were doing. There was  singing (Swanee River, Polly Wolly Doodle), tap dancing, and comic skits — for example, one included a collection of one-off fruits and vegetables, and a woman who says to her suitor “But darling, we…”,  then  holds up, wait for it, a cantalope!, as immediately recognized and shouted out by a willing audience.

Was there blackface? I honestly don’t remember, but yes, probably. Burnt cork  is easy to manufacture,  apply and remove, and also makes a fine beard for a  Christmas Wise Man or Halloween hobo.

The players rehearsed religiously, seated onstage in the traditional minstrel-show arrangement of chairs. At  only nine or ten years old, I was a  stagehand, my sole duty being to open and close the curtains between  acts. The show was scheduled  for one night only, a Thursday. On that Thursday, as I was getting ready for bed, a stray thought crossed my mind and I froze and said to myself “Shit.”

I assume the show started  just fine without me, but I never went back to that church  and never knew  for sure what happened that night at eight o’clock. Whenever I tell this story to someone, they always say “Wow, maybe they’re still stuck behind the curtains.” That’s crazy, right?