There was a brief window of time, between the ages of 9 and 12 or so, when I aspired to be an actor. And it was somewhere in the middle of this period that I heard our school was holding auditions for the play “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” a stage adaptation of the Peanuts comic strip. I was excited. Maybe now I could show the world, including my peers, the wellspring of hidden talent and star power that dwelled just beneath my unassuming façade. Boldly, I tried out for the part of Chuck Brown himself.
I was somewhat surprised to find that only a handful of other kids recognized what a golden opportunity this was, and I didn’t have a lot of competition. I nailed the audition, and got the part! The only catch, and it was a big catch, was that I was to be the third-string Charlie.
At our school, whenever they put on a school play there were three performances: the most important, culminating performance in the evening when all the parents came; an earlier afternoon performance during school for the older grades; and an even earlier, almost-dress-rehearsal morning run-through for the primary grades.
I had earned the role of Charlie Brown for the morning performance. The third-string Charlie Brown. My audience was to be comprised of 5 to 8 year olds.
In spite of this setback, I prepared diligently for the part of Charlie Brown. Luckily, it wasn’t too much of a stretch, character-wise, from my usual demeanor. There was no need to gain 50 pounds for the role or spend two weeks infiltrating myself into a playground gang to get a feel for Charlie’s “motivation.” I just had to memorize my lines and attend the rehearsals. Meanwhile, my mom was charged with the task of making a Charlie Brown costume for me, with those jagged black lines along the front of my shirt.
We rehearsed for about two weeks: the choir, the various Linuses and Lucys, the stage crew. My part was actually pretty simple. There were sections in the play where I would say a few words, then burst into song and the choir would come in to accompany me, and then the choir would keep singing, then I’d say something bleak or self-deprecating or Lucy would put me down in some way, and the teacher would bang on the piano and the chorus would swell and all I’d have to do is stand there, looking depressed. A piece of cake really.
Finally the big morning came. I was a bit nervous. As the third-string Charlie I had been given the least rehearsal time, and to make matters worse my mom hadn’t done a very good job on the shirt. Black jagged strips of felt were sewn crudely onto a yellow-orange sweatshirt, and the lines were all uneven and not parallel. One of the lines was really thick at one point and really thin at another. I looked like a Richter Scale printout with serious toner cartidge issues.
I waited backstage for my cue. When it came, there was no turning back. I went out there before the crowd of overstimulated kindergarten to third graders and began to recite, in front of a gigantic metal microphone, buoyed along by the piano accompaniment of my music teacher, the words that still burn in my memory over three decades later:

I’m not very handsome, or clever, or lucid
I act like a stick, or I cough, or I laugh
Or I don’t bring a present, or I spill the ice cream
Or I get so depressed that I stand and I scream…

What a trip to lay on a ten year old kid.
The song was moving relentlessly forward, and there was nothing I could do about it. Next came the part where I had to start singing, just a couple of words before the choir begins to swell and mercifully drown me out. I had handled my spoken recitation without incident, but when I hit that high note which launches the song in front of that microphone, a sound emerged from my young throat so warbly and distressed and obviously too high for my vocal range that my only thought was “I sure hope the microphone isn’t picking this up too well.”
I couldn’t believe that the voice I was hearing from the auditorium speakers belonged to me. It sounded like a turkey just before being beheaded. My only consolation was that the choir would soon beat me down by sheer force of will and magnitude. Suddenly I wished I was part of the choir and not the “star” up on stage.

Ever since that fateful morning, I have shied away from every possible opportunity to stand in the spotlight. I am now part of the faceless choir, contentedly drowning out others' feeble and misguided attempts to shine.
And I'm very comfortable with that.