Twas Brillig

Remember how last week I was begging for bloggy topics? Well, y’all gave me lots and lots of fun ideas. I’m starting with my really random and almost entirely unmemorable encounter with Donny Osmond, because it was the most requested topic! Kate of What Defines Me, Luisa of Novembrance, CF of Canadian Flake, and Kate of Walking Kateastrophe all requested this story, so you can blame them…

Once upon a time, I was in high school. And I did what any good high school girl would do—I went to activities at the nearby university and passed myself off as a college student.

Among these adventures was (drumroll please….) Tunnel Singing. That’s right. On Sunday evenings, groups of BYU students would gather in a “tunnel” and sing music from the LDS hymnal. The music was beautiful, the acoustics amazing, and the eye-candy FANTASTIC. In fact, after many of these religious experiences, I may or may not have ended up making out with some guy I’d met there…

But I digress.

I went to Tunnel Singing for years, starting when I was 14, and passed myself off as a college student. Of course, sometimes I went with my older brother and his friends (who actually BELONGED there) but as they grew up and moved on, I started inviting my own friends—other high school students like myself.

One night, I invited my buddy Donny Osmond Jr. No one called him “Donny” by the way. He was just Don. He and I were never super close, though we were definitely friends. He was always dating some friend of mine, or I was dating some friend of his. We were always in the same group for date dances (including this one)—yes, friends, it was Utah. Don was a cool, zaney, whacky, and average teenager, who carried the great albatross of his father’s name. Not that he didn’t love his dad, or anything, but he wanted to be his own person and with a name like that, it was difficult. Especially in Utah. So we all helped him by not swooning over his dad or singing “And they call it ‘Puppy Love’” in front of him, etc.

Anyway, we invited Don to come Tunnel Singing with us. And we all had a great time. And then he told his parents about it, and Daddy Donny himself decided to come too!

So, we all piled into the Osmond family Suburban and headed off to Tunnel Singing. And once we arrived at the crowded event, I found myself seated next to Daddy Donny, all shmooshed up against him. And suddenly I started to think about my older sister Amy who’d had the world’s biggest crush on this Teen Idol. She’d had every LP, every pic on her wall from Tiger Beat magazine, and even Donny and Marie action figures! I KNOW!!! And here I was, shmooshed up against him!

I have to say that this was BYU—a place where every soul there would have known the name “Donny Osmond” and would have fallen all over him had he walked into the tunnel and said, “Hello, I’m Donny Osmond, you may now proceed to adore me.” But he didn’t. He was just another guy, singing like all the other guys there.

Anyway, he was very kind. Very sweet. He would lean towards me and harmonize with the part I was singing, and make me feel like the greatest vocalist in the world. But in true “friends with Don” fashion, I did my best not to swoon, freak out, or make an idiot of myself in any way.

And that’s it. I wish I could say that I’d grabbed him and kissed him, or even that I’d grabbed DON and kissed HIM—that would be worth some brownie points, right? Alas, no.

But, because I love all you Donny Osmond worshipers and I hate to leave you so disappointed, I’m including a little Donny clip for your audiovisual pleasure. Enjoy.