In the fifth grade we performed a play written by our dramatics teacher about Julia Ward Howe. I was in the chorus. We were studying American history. In our family we have a joke, ―I‘m Julia Ward. How!‖ We rehearsed and rehearsed.
When it came time for the performance, the chorus, at the end of the play, as it was supposed to do, marched forward, singing, ―The Battle Hymn of the Republic.‖
We started singing and marching. My mother had put my unruly, curly hair up in rag curlers the night before. Suddenly I had goose pimples all over. I had never felt anything like this. ―Glory, glory, halleluiah,/ Glory, glory, halleluiah,/ Glory, glory, glory, halleluiah,/ His truth is marching on.‖
When I got home I told my mother how I had felt. I wondered if I had had stage fright. I had felt sort of lifted up.
―That was excitement,‖ she said.