I went to seventh grade with Donald Trump.  This was at The Kew-Forest School in Forest Hills, NY, circa 1958.  Only it wasn’t called seventh grade, it was called Intermediate IV.  We all knew that Donnie (the name we called him then) would grow up to be something different because at lunchtime he would jump onto the table and swing his jacket around his head while shouting, “We need a wall around this school.  A wall, I tell you!” It was always an amusing interruption of an otherwise quotidian lunch, and the rest of us just smiled and continued eating our tuna fish sandwiches.  Except one day Donnie was atop a table swinging his jacket when he abruptly pointed to our math teacher, Miss Philpott*, and screamed, “You’re fired!” Several sandwiches dropped, including mine.  Miss Philpott looked dumbfounded mid-chew, but had the presence of mind to rise up in the strength of her young womanhood and order Donnie off the table; to which Donnie sourly snarled something about her “being an enemy from within.”

Now, the table-screaming scenarios are no more true than Kamala winning the election—I was just amusing myself as writers are wont to do.  But I did attend school with Donald Trump, and here’s something true that most people don’t know about him.  President Trump has a nice singing voice.  How do I know this?  In Intermediate IV that year, under the direction of the school music director, Mr. Charles Walker, our class put on “H.M.S. Pinafore.”  I played Josephine.  Donnie was one of the sailors in the chorus, and at some point, I recall him standing behind me and I clearly heard his lovely soprano voice crooning the majesty of Gilbert and Sullivan.  I was from a family of professional musicians and appreciated his good pitch.

We sail the ocean blue...and our saucy ship’s a beauty.

We’re sober men and true...and attentive to our duty...

Funny how life goes.  Sing on, Mr. Trump!

Claudia Orpin lives in Texas.  She is the author of Annie’s Duet, under her pen name, Claudia Cooper.

*Philpott is similar to the math teacher’s actual name.

Image: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, unaltered.