I Am A Former Class Clown

You wanted a serious, senstive story. Now you have one. This is the side of me that most people never see--my sensitive and vulnerable side. I want to honor the wishes of our beloved HubMasters and NOT present any verbiabe about guns, alcohol, drugs, violence against humanity or animals, or even comedy. I want to abide by the HubPages guidelines.

I confess before you and God that I was once a class clown. That is a fact ladies and gentlemen.  To my knowledge, there has not been that much written about the sensitive side of class clowns--not on HubPages. There might have been some, mind you, but I have never read anything about class clowns on this worthy avenue of journalism.

A few questions to fully understand all there is about a class clown.

1. Where do class clowns come from? Their mother' womb. That is a relatively-easy question. Class clowns are born like normal human beings, but early on for most class clowns, they somehow develop a sense of fear mixed with rejection from someone and that triggers a defense mechanism inside their heads, that prod them to pull practical jokes on their peers, make up comedy stories and skits, all for the reason to be accepted and included in the group that stands in their way of being popular and liked.

2. What do class clowns look like? There is NOT a standard design for class clowns. They do not roll of an assembly line like the cars inside a Toyota plant. Class clowns come in all sizes, shapes, heights, colors, backgrounds, genders, and comedy material. To look, you couldn't pick me out of a crowd in my class clown days. I was stealthy like the new B-1 bomber that few over Baghdad. I was methodical and sure of what I was going to say to a group of people who I wanted for friends. I was a prepared class clown.

3. Are class  clowns dangerous to society? NO. Class clowns are only dangerous to themselves if they let their talent for clowning get seriously of hand. The average, garden variety class clown is only about harmless pranks and laughs, but I can assume that there are some wayward class clowns, 'broken arrows,' if you will, go go off the 'Laughter Trail' and may cause serious damage to  people, landscapes and political assemblies. I am not that concerned about 'those' renegade class clowns, just how I failed at my class clown career and sharing what I really felt in those awkward days from 1961 through 1972 when I graduated from Hamilton High School, Hamilton, Alabama.

I CONFESS: on my first day of first-grade at New Home School, outside of Hamilton, I was in fear of being rejected and not included in the games that the other New Home School students were playing, but instead of being 'me', I resorted to making up funny stories and trying to get an audience to listen to me. Guess my material in 1961 was ahead of its time for not one student stood in awe of my class clown abilities.

I CONFESS: in order to make new friends, well, friends, because I was friendless, I would intentionally injure myself by falling down the steep steps that led to the front of the school building. A crowd of concerned students would gather around me like hungry chickens at feeding time and I would lay there and listen to them say, "Is he gonna be okay?" and "How did this happen?" and before they knew it, I was friends with most of that crowd. And the knots and bruises eventually went away, but I enjoyed the knot and bruises as past reminders of my "accident" and get to retell the story and laugh with my new buddies.

I CONFESS: from the time of my life, age five, that I began to be aware of things around me, I have always starved for atttention. When my sister married off at age sixteen, that left me with my mother who mostly raised me while my dad was away on jobs. But when my sister would drop by for her weekly and sometimes-daily visits, I would be left to compete for my mother's attention, thus the class clown would come out and off I would go into an elborate story about seeing a huge, 10-foot long snake down by the  barn where I would play and that would capture my mom's attention long enough to get her to talk to me about the dangers of poison snakes. You see, class clowning is not all about laughs.

I CONFESS: from 1966, on through my junior and senior high school years, I was misunderstood by all of my classmates. I was normal to the point of wanting to be a part of my class like everyone else, but was never chosen for ANY office from 1967 on through 1972. The upper-crust kids with the money, power, and popularity always got elected to all the offices leaving us class clowns to only work our way into their precious inner-circles. It was not a fun time in my life, friends. Especially when I would see "those guys" who were gifted from God at birth to always succeed, always have friends, always be popular and funny without being a class clown take my chances away just by moseying up to the group I wanted to talk to and just with a wink or a soft "hi," the crowd was his, leaving me standing there with my class clown routine that I never got to peform. Talk about deep-rooted hurt. This was hurt, rejection, and outcast defined.

I CONFESS: I wanted to exhibit my serious side and not always be thought of as a class clown. When I would study-up on whatever subject I could absorb, I would see a group of girls chatting in the hallway and slowly walk up and say, "Hello, girls! Did you hear about the recent shift in Global Economics and European Political Beliefs?" The girls would look at each other while holding back the laughter and then look at me and reply, 'Awww, Kenny. That's just another one of your class clown jokes! Where is the punchline?" And again, I would be left stading alone in the hallway confused and not knowing how to get friends to see the real me. They always saw the external class clown and not the warm-hearted, lively person inside that was me. Never.

I CONFESS: many is the time I have tried explaining until my face turned blue that I was not the one who caused the explosion in the Science Lab or put a live lizard in the P.E. teacher's gym shorts and other 'dangerous' stunts. You see, a class clown is his or her own judge, jury and executioner. No one ever really trusts a class clown--after high school, college, marriage, work and of all places, church. This is a true fact. We are a marked species, us class clowns both former and current standing.

I just wonder at this point of my life when I pass away and stand before God, my maker and judge, will I be allowed to enjoy the slendor of Heaven with innumerable saints who have lived holy lives of sacrifice and devotion to God, or will he put me with my own kind, the class clowns of old--both famous and non-famous such as: Jackie Gleason, George Burns, Harold Loyd, Buster Keaton, The Three Stooges, Jack Benny, Johnny Carson, Red Skelton and more? I just wonder.

But now that I really think about it, the second group would not be a bad place to spend all of eternity. Not a bad place at all.

THIS IS DEDICATED TO ALL FORMER AND CURRENT CLASS CLOWNS ACROSS THE UNITED STATES AND ABROAD. BE PROUD OF WHAT YOU ARE. BE THE BEST CLASS CLOWN YOU CAN BE. GOD IS WATCHING.