When I was 5 or 6, my parents enrolled me in an acting class.

I think it was a summer community program. I know there were two skill levels and diversity within those. The older kids performed “Peter & The Wolf.” We littler students put on “The Gingerbread Man.” I must have been one of the youngest of the younger cast; a non-speaking role was created for me.

I was the daughter of the cow that the gingerbread boy interviews while on his runaway travels. My costume was a black leotard and tights, a pinned-on tail, and a huge paper-mache head. I was told to walk on my hands and feet (not my hands and knees, so I had to keep my legs awkwardly bent throughout my minutes on stage).

I had no lines. My part was simply to be there with my cow mother, and to follow her when she moved off-stage.

It was acoustically fascinating within my mask. I had at least as much room as one of those hose-connected deep sea divers, but instead of glass I had wire mesh between my face and the front of the calf-head. That paper-mache cavern provided an echo to my whisper. And I’d just discovered that I liked the sound of the word “precious.”

So the whole time I was on stage I was whispering “precious” inside that head. “Precious precious precious.” Delicious.

We must have performed our little skit before the older kids put on Peter & The Wolf, because my other memory involves watching the longer play with my parents. I may have sat between them; I remember having my father on my left.

During a scene where Peter is skipping around in front of his cottage, a length of the little picket fence that defined the yard collapsed. The kid playing Peter managed to right the prop while making one of his or her skipping circuits. My father admired that. He told me what “poise” is.

That’s what I learned from acting class. Precious and poise.