I should have been a Rock Star - the Czech rock star prank

My cousin Rob and I went to a lot of concerts together. Rob had grown up just a hundred yards or so from my house out on the hill of Dugan Road. He and his sisters and me and my brothers and sisters had walked that hundred or so yards a lot of times. Their house was like our second home and visa-versa.
Rob was a great deal more daring than the rest of us in dress and hair. While we had all gone through he years of long hair and bell bottom pants, I had trimmed mine down to get a teaching job, and brothers Tim and Tom wore theirs in varying lengths. Rob, for a while, had this shiny, long reddish-orange hair that stood out everywhere.
In fact, we were hairy enough that the local police would sometimes stop us 'just because." Even in the small town of Kiefer where I had grown up and played all the sports, been the Valedictorian, as soon as I went to college and grew out my hair, I suddenly because a target for the local sheriff who stopped me because he thought I was speeding in my beat up 1970 Ford maverick. ( it was lucky to run, much less speed.)
Rob and I were stopped in Sapulpa, the town I had started teaching in, one night late as we returned from a midnight movie. The funny thing was, the only thing we had in our system was popcorn and Coca Cola. But, there Rob was with his long straight hair and me with my beard and afro. It was not uncommon. I imagine it made the police suspicious right away.
With the 1980's and the start of the New Wave music movement, MTV and blossoming punk from the late 70's, the hair styles and clothes changed dramatically. Mine did not. The beard and afro stayed, more due to low maintenance and fear of change than to dedication to a style. Rob changed dramatically. he wore several earrings, dyed his red hair various colors, wore a smoking jacket and began smoking clove cigarettes.
The cool thing about this was, that when we went to concerts, it was only a matter of time till a lot of girls came around because of his style. Neither of us was really forward enough to take advantage of that situation.

Rob started work for a local phone company and eventually moved an hour or so away to work. On one of his return visits, he stopped by my school for the day to visit me. That year, I was teaching mostly 8th grade civics classes, and on the spot, Rob and I devised a quick prank to pull on my students.
When the kids wandered into class, of course, one of the first things they noticed was Rob sitting at my desk, wearing earrings ( not allowed at school for boys) and hair that was half red and half black.
The kids would sidle up to me, whispering "Who is that?"
Now, the name I gave him I can no longer remember, so I will "Vlad" in it's place. I would tell the kids, "This is my cousin, Vlad, from Czechoslovakia. He plays in a rock band and they are on tour. Vlad is visiting me because they are playing at Cains Ballroom in Tulsa tonight."
"Can we talk to him? Can he speak English?"
"No" I told them. "Only Czech, but i can translate for you if you want to ask him something."
So these kids would ask him questions, and I in turn would turn to Rob and mutter some nonsensical gibberish that sounded like ti was Slavic or eastern European. he would then speak the same gibberish back and I woulds make up answers to tell the kids. We would throw in some hand gestures or a laugh every once in the while as if we were sharing a private joke. It was all ad-libbed.
This went on for three class periods, before "Vlad" had to leave. A lot of the kids asked for his autograph and asked if his music was released here in the states yet. Of course, it was not here yet.
I walked Rob/Vlad outside the school door, where he and I burst into laughter and near tears.

I did finally tell the kids in class about the prank. They loved the fact that I tried to pull a joke on them.

Rob eventually lost the multicolored hair, but still wears the earring. In fact nowadays he can often be seen with shaved head, and no trace of the bright red that graced 1/2 of his former Czech head.