Throwback Thursday: Mally Holiday Edition

Here is a rare, valuable and unquestionably alluring photo of me tinkling the imitation ivories with the McKinley Junior High School orchestra at our gala holiday concert in front of the JCPenney at Cedar Rapids' relentlessly beige Westdale Mall:

You can tell I'm totally into the music because my eyes are closed and my hair is floofing dramatically with every arpeggio I summon from the depths of my artistic soul. You can tell it's a winter concert because of our coats piled haphazardly like broken Christmas dreams in the background. Right in front of the picket fence surrounding the dented-but-still-dancing Santa display that exuded all the holiday magic and wonder of the Midas carburetor aisle. And by the Hawkeye Rose Bowl pin dwarfing my chest. A quick google search tells me the Hawkeyes went to the Rose Bowl in January 1981, which would have put me in seventh grade. A quick reality check says that a giant macho football pin doesn't cancel out the fact that I'm gaily playing "Suzy Snowflake" on a partially tuned, poorly voiced mall piano.