Page 158 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
to hang out with friends (old and new) around B-71. One fateful day in first semester of my junior year, a senior, David Plavin, who was very active in B-71 and Sing, and who had come to know me, took me aside. He said that he thought that I would be a “natural” for Mayor when I became a senior and that I should consider running for that office in the second semester of my junior year. The idea had never occurred to me, but I said that I was flattered and that I would consider it.
A few months later, a twelve-foot banner, which had been painted in my basement under the supervision of Joe Chassler, was hung in the cafeteria, along with the six campaign banners of all of the other candi- dates for the major offices. On one side of the banner was a picture of Huckleberry Hound, a popular TV cartoon character, created by Wil- liam Hanna and Joseph Barbera. He was sitting on a charger and carrying a banner that read, “I’m Voting for Harvey Whatsisname.” On the other side was another popular Hanna and Barbera cartoon character, Yogi Bear (whose name, you will note, started with a Y ), lying down under a tree and musing, “Yaverbaum . . . That’s a Funny Name.” When that banner was painted, so too were maybe one hundred posters, most of which bore the likeness of either Huck or Yogi Bear (based on stencils that Joe created), which were painted by a large group of friends, many of whom had been on the Lyric Committee. When we painted the ban- ner and posters in my basement, we also painted the banner and posters of Linda Lee, with whom I had become very close, as I also was with her best friend, Marcia Serlin. Linda was running for Executive Secretary, the same part that she had played in Sophomore Sing.
I had to give four (identical) speeches in the campaign, one at Kens- ington and one for each of the grades in the main building, and then respond to questions, as did the two candidates against whom I was run- ning. Somehow, both my speech and my responses drew a lot of laughs (most—but not all—of which I had in fact intended to elicit), and that fact, combined with the fact that I had somehow gotten along with one of the major “rocks” (see Chapter Eight to refresh your recollection concerning this key term) at Midwood, a strong John Travolta–type leader in a key constituency that was essentially unknown to my oppo-
• 140 •