It was a sunny afternoon at the Bretton Woods Ski Resort in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. My brothers, Jimmy and Johnny were onstage performing with me at the resort's nightclub. Performing 5,6, 7 days a week took its toll on us and after a while every venue became a blur and sometimes rather boring. To keep it interesting we played this game that only we knew was going on.
You can see Jimmy acting like an ostrich in this scene. It was one of man skits we did on stage.
After observing thousands of people from all walks of life onstage we determined that each person has certain characteristics of other unrelated people. So, while singing and playing one of us would spot someone in the room, back off from the mic and yell across to the others, "Mickey Mantle" or Don Rockles" or someone they resembled. Depending on how close we made the call it could cause immediate belly laughing to the point where we could hardly sing, and the audience would have no idea what set us off.
One time Jimmy yelled to us, "Teddy Davis". That was it. We all fell into a paralyzing laughter. Being so close in age we pretty much knew students in each others grades during high school over a decade earlier. Teddy Davis was a red headed guy that you could never forget. Here we were in a completely different state and this guy looked EXACTLY like Teddy Davis, only maybe 12 years older. He was wearing a bright blue parka and was about the same height and stature.
We spent the next two sets making private jokes every time he came up to the dance floor in front of us. He couldn't hear our remarks for the volume of the music. Teddy was the hit of our night. OK. I know what you're thinking. He was the real Teddy Davis, right? Wrong! That would've been a pretty amazing coincidence.
The dance floor and stage were in an upstairs loft area and the stairs ran right up next to the right side of the stage. As we were trying to compose ourselves to entertain the rest of the audience with little success we were continually laughing at every joke Johnny would make. Johnny is so funny anyway, but he was relentless that night. Just when we couldn't take it any more, a man with a bright blue park and red hair emerged from the stairs and walked into the room.
Now you've got it!!! He was the REAL Teddy Davis!! What are the odds? We hadn't even mentioned the man's name in over a decade and his double was the butt of our private jokes all night. And, there he was as real as life itself. We completely lost it, stopped playing immediately to try putting our instruments down before we dropped them and almost fell to the stage floor. We were buckled over walking circles around each other on the stage. Because the music stopped all attention went the stage and we had no answer for why we we were laughing. The audience couldn't possibly have known, and neither would either of the Teddy Davis's.
The more we thought of our predicament the harder we laughed and the more attention we drew to ourselves. People in the audience started laughing histerically just because our laughing was so contagious. They laughed simply because we were laughing so uncntrollably.
Neither Teddy Davis had a clue and the real Teddy Davis was even less clueless because he just arrived and was caught up in looking for a table. He wasn't into the music or stage antics yet and so didn't even notice the calamity taking place. Our only hope was to take a deep breath and start playing again which we did. The room returned to normal and we played the remaining songs for the set. That wasn't easy because every time one of us saw either of the Teddys he would start laughing uncontrollably again which made the others lose it again and again. We finally finished the set so we could get off stage and gather our wits.
We went over to the real Teddy Davis and shocked him out of his chair because he would've never expected to see us in another state, much less on stage as the entertainment. When we told him the story he hooked right into the riduiculousness of the whole thing, especially when we pointed out his double. He never moved from his table because he didn't want to bring attention to the fact that there was two of HIM in the room. It's bad enough when two people mistakenly wear the exact same clothes to an event. It's even worse when two people look like clones.
It was one of the most impossible coincidences any of us had ever experienced and will ever forget. Teddy Davis. Who Knew? And, to think there is probably another one of ME out there somewhere.