Who am I really? Make a guess

“Cellophane, Mister Cellophane shoulda been my name. Mister Cellophane. ‘Cause you can look right through

me, walk right by me and never know I’m here.”

That song from the musical “Chicago” fits me nicely. People didn’t tend to notice or remember me (at least until I started this column). 

Being invisible benefits: I was not bullied as a child. As a reporter, I went unnoticed (until I went in for the kill!). I don’t get into many arguments. I haven’t offended many people with these nonpartisan writings.

But onceit got me into trouble with my boss. “You never have any opinions,” he told me. That is a problem when you are editor of a magazine (Satellite Orbit) with a staff of seven and a circulation of 300,000 readers. (If I had expressed my opinion about him, I’m sure I would have been fired.)

In college, a very drunken senior went into a rant about each classmate there. When he got to me, he said, “Doan, you are a nonentity. We don’t know anything about you!” I looked it up: It means non-existent. Good. I liked it that way.

You could look back on my college career and not know what to think. I started off on the college newspaper with a bunch of student radicals. And this was at UC Berkeleyin the 1960s, the national capital of rebellion, just like Rome is the headquarters of the Catholic Church.

The staff sang revolutionary songs by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger at parties. They demonstrated at the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings in San Francisco. We went on strike when the student government didn’t like us endorsing a leftist candidate. My name even showed up with the others in a state government report on subversive activities.

So as a junior, what did I do for a second act? I went to the dark side. I joined a fraternity.

The radicals considered me a traitor as I cut my hair shorter and began wearing button-down shirts and white socks, the uniform of these reactionary, elitist Patrician snobs.

No more singing “We Shall Overcome” at Saturday night parties. Now, it was sorority dances, paddling at initiations and crooning to guys’ girlfriends…though that was past the era of panty raids.

I even became the fraternity president, a leader in the overlords of oppression, and met regularly with the ultra-establishment fraternity council.

Had I finally seen the light? We’ll, no. I had been lonely.

So, what did all this make me? Well, you’ll never know. Not here anyway, Signed: Mr. Cellophane.

(The song in the video is actually “Waving Through a Window” from the musical “Dear Evan Hansen,” with the same theme.)