...And Come Back A Star Poem by Robert Winthrop

In junior high I had a job at Osterloh's book store.
My job was framing pictures and sweeping up the floor.
Because I worked, I couldn't be in Central School's class play,
They made me curtain puller, and I took part in that way.

To learn my job as puller I had seen a time or two
The actors practicing their lines but not the play all through.
The action of the play was in a home for the insane.
'Twould not be called P.C. today, but then it caused no pain.

The big day of the play arrived and I went to my job,
And as I went about my work, Jack Osterloh called, 'Bob! '
So I laid down my hammer and was greeted by a bomb,
For standing there, her face distressed, I saw Yates Hafner's mom.

She said that Yates was just too sick to go on in the play.
She asked me if I thought I could, and so I said, 'Okay.'
She handed me a copy of the play and wished me well.
I hurried home to learn the lines. My head began to swell.

The understudy would go on and make the play a hit.
I'd seen the plot a hundred times; now I was part of it.
Although I crammed and studied hard, the job was just too much.
I couldn't learn so many lines, the moves, the names
and such.

Because I hadn't seen the play, I laughed at every chance,
And Danny Richart's antics made me nearly wet my pants.
Miss Ruby Keeler may have had the skill to pull it off,
And Miss MacLaine became a star; to them my hat I doff.
Although I didn't steal the show, I tell you now in rhyme,
The understudy puller closed the curtain just in time.