When I was a college freshman way back in the day, a friend, dressed to the nines, wanted me to tag along while she tried out for a modeling club. Wearing jeans and a T-shirt and looking generally slouchy, I said okay. As I watched students audition, I thought, “They’re not doing it right.” When I was in high school, a relative talked me into allowing her to sponsor me in a program for her sorority. We teenage girls were to put on a show, displaying our “talents.” Mine was a silly routine inspired by “Flashdance.” It was, in a word, awful. One girl who’d had modeling lessons strutted across the stage. She stood tall and straight with her hands on her hips as she pivoted and posed. She was self-assured and calm, not to mention very pretty. It made an impression.
Back to the college modeling try-outs. The women were dressed fine, but they had no technique. Feeling cocky, as I often did back then, I signed up to audition…in my slouchy jeans, T-shirt, and white sneakers. I mimicked the girl at the sorority show. My memory is biased, of course, but I recall the judges seemed riveted. No one else at the audition had moved like that. As I “freestyled” to Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know,” I knew I’d impressed the judges. I made the club.
That’s my first and strongest impression of Whitney Houston. Her music was a constant companion during those undergrad years. She was around 22 when I was a freshman, and I wanted to be her. Somewhere along the way Houston became a slave to drugs, and her powerful voice failed. A God-given talent, lost, never to be recovered.
