Instead of complaining that other people aren't adding to their blogs, I could write my own. Let's see. Which childhood memory should we dredge up today for our amusement? I've been meaning to write the "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" story.

In eighth grade, we moved to a really snobby town. Middle school is hard enough without that. Anyway, for several weeks, the homerooms competed in a music contest. Each morning, the music teacher went to the office and played a snippet of a popular song over the PA system. Each homeroom sent their guess for which song it was to the front office.

My class was one of those in the lead, thanks, in part, to a kid named Jim who was in the band and chorus and knew a lot of songs. But one morning, they played a snippet of a Billy Joel song. Most people agreed that it was "Big Shot." Since I had played a lot of Billy Joel songs for my piano lessons, I was pretty sure I recognized it as the less-well-known "Say Goodbye to Hollywood." But should I say something? Opening my mouth in school at all generally got me picked on. Jim wrote down the pick and gave it to April, our elected class representative (and one of the most popular girls in school) to bring to the office.

I made a quick decision and said, "April! It's not 'Big Shot.' " I told her what I thought the song was. Then, I saw the girl in front of me, who was unpopular and very nice, look at me, scared. Another girl looked at me, too, her eyes wide. April and Jim changed the name of the song to "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" on our answer sheet, and as April left the room to deliver it, the girl in front of me said to me, "You better be right." She knew that if I'd screwed up our homeroom's chances, I'd be a goner. Particularly with the way I'd called out.

I was scared to death, too. What if I was wrong? Why had I spoken up anyway? If I'd kept my mouth shut, I would be just fine. But I took a risk. I kept remembering what I'd done for the rest of the day and being scared. I assured myself I'd heard right, but there was no way to be 100 percent certain.

The next morning, we found out that it was, indeed, "Say Goodbye to Hollywood," and we were probably the only homeroom that got it, and we stayed in the lead. We might have even won a pizza party in the end; I can't remember. I didn't get thanked, but I knew I wouldn't -- I was just glad not to get picked on.

If I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn't have taken the risk. I don't know what motivated me to call out on that particular day. But I think the most interesting part, and what I remember most, is the two girls looking at me scared, knowing what a real risk it was -- a risk just because I opened my mouth and said something essentially meaningless to a popular kid.