 me aware of the importance and power of live theatre.
I also remember being freaked out and nervous about being in the place where Lincoln got shot.
In 1972, I entered 4th grade, where my teacher was Mrs. McGregor. And I turned 9. My parents brought me back from England the Pelham Puppets ventriloquial figure "Fido", who I guess was supposed to be a dog but looked more like a lion. He starred in a puppet show that I believe I put on in 4th grade. I met Nashville puppeteer Tom Tichenor twice, right around 1972. He autographed my copy of Tom Tichenor's Puppets: "To Galen, May your strings never tangle!"
So: Puppets and live theatre. 1972.
1971. The year I turned 8. That summer, we went to Washington D.C. to visit the Russos. I remember the Smithsonian Institution, and the exhibit on Rube Goldberg they had. I found this fascinating.
I entered the third grade, where my teacher was Alice Atkins. (Or was it Adkins?) I remember her fondly. She NEVER made mistakes on the blackboard that needed correcting. It was in her class that I met Terry Fluker, who I have to count as my "oldest friend" that I still keep in touch with.
Culturally, 1971 was a big year for Disney. Disney World opened on October 1st. Oh, how I desperately wanted to go there as a child. Desperately. But we never did. I definitely made up for this deficiency, though, in later years.
July was a brutal month for Disney deaths. Ub Iwerks on the 7th, voice actor Bill Thompson on the 15th, and Cliff "Ukulele Ike" "Jiminy Cricket" Edwards on the 17th. Then we lost voice actor Billy Gilbert on September 23rd, and Roy Disney on December 20th. I remember my mother showing me the article on Edwards' death, which probably helped me realize there were actual people behind these beloved characters.
For my 8th birthday, I got a copy of the book Tom Tichenor's Puppets.
Henson's special The Frog Prince was broadcast. I loved that special, and especially the accompanying album. And oh, what did I get for Christmas? The entire first-run set of Sesame Street puppets, that's what. Ernie, Bert, Oscar, Cookie, and Big Bird.
And so we enter a new decade: the 1970s. It was in this year that I made my stage debut in our first grade play, "May Day for Mother". I may have been the narrator. I was usually the narrator. But I'm sure that, standing under a big umbrella with a friend, I sang "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head". (The song, from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, was released the year before.) As I have been told, apparently my friend and I got a false start on the song, and things ground to a halt. I then turned to our music teacher and accompanist, and said "Let's take it from the top, Mrs. Miller." Hilarity reportedly ensued, although I meant nothing funny by it. That's what they said on TV! Clearly performing was in my blood.
At some point, the Russos moved to the Washington D.C. area, perhaps in this year. I was very sad.
I began 2nd grade, with Mrs. Walden my teacher. She and I didn't get along especially well. I remember correcting something she had written on the blackboard. It was wrong, but she resented it. Perhaps I wasn't especially polite about it, but I was seven. I guess she would rather be wrong than be corrected, and would rather scold a student for impudence than praise him for catching an error. I suppose I was a cocky kid. I remember us having a spelling bee, and I lost on the word "chief", because I tried to mentally apply the "i before e except after c" rule (which is bogus even when the vowels are directly after the c). When I lost, I remember detecting unmistakable glee in Mrs. Walden's tone.
There was a summer trip to Chicago at some point...perhaps it was this year?
And in World News, the Beatles released Let It Be, their last album, and broke up. I was, as usual, totally unaware. Disney released The Aristocats, the first Disney feature that I really felt was "mine". And Stephen Sondheim found his voice on Broadway with Company, a show I'm looking forward to doing at Tennessee Rep in 2014!
But the reason 1969 was such an important year for me essentially boils down to this: Sesame Street began. Now, at six years old, and an early reader at that, I was just a bit beyond Sesame Street's target audience. But the Muppets were more than sufficient reason for me to watch. I actually remember watching "This Way to Sesame Street", a half-hour preview special that was shown on NBC on November 8th, two days before the show itself debuted. Perhaps I had seen the Muppets on the Ed Sullivan Show prior to this, I don't remember. But I was transfixed.
I eventually figured out how to get to Sesame Street — literally — myself.
In December, in Woman's Day magazine, the Henson "Purple-Necked, Black-Bearded Blatch" story appeared, with a script and instructions for making the puppets. My mother made me every one of them.
On June 22, Judy Garland died. I believe I remember this, and my mother telling me that Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz had died. But she wasn't a little girl anymore. I vaguely remember my mother telling me she had "had some problems", or something like that.
On July 20, we landed on the moon. I have absolutely no recollection of this event. I was almost six years old. If something this noteworthy had happened when Burton was almost six, Laura and I would have brought him in front of the TV, and said "Watch this! This is history! Remember this moment for the rest of your life! You are watching history being made!" But I don't believe my mother did anything like this for us. I wish I could say I remembered it.
On September 6, H.R. Pufnstuf debuted. I loved this show.
On September 20, the last Looney Tune was released. I loved watching Bugs Bunny on Saturday mornings, definitely a leading contributor to my interest in animation.
On September 26, the Beatles released Abbey Road.
On October 5, Monty Python's Flying Circus was first broadcast.
1969. I feel like this is the year I really started being — for better or for worse — whoever it is that I am.
I remember the unspeakable shock of running into Mrs. Berry in the grocery store with my mother. This was WRONG. She was NOT where she belonged!
I remember I painted a jack o'lantern in kindergarten, and it was deemed impressive by Mrs. Berry.
I remember hiding under a table, jumping out, and kissing a girl on the cheek. Okay, I certainly remember who it was, but this brings me to a question that could grow to be significant as I continue this public journal: Do I name names? Am I writing an autobiography, of sorts? Should I just use initials? Does absolutely anyone care at all? I guess I'll just "wing it" as I go. Perhaps I'll change the names to protect the innocent.
In the summer of '68, we took a trip to San Antonio to see the HemisFair, so that must have been just before I started kindergarten. We went in our enormous blue Buick. (Before the Buick, I remember a black VW Beetle that we had.) At the Hemisfair, I saw Kaleidoscope, the live puppet show by Sid and Marty Krofft that was the progenitor of H.R. Pufnstuf, a TV show I loved dearly.
NET started carrying Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in 1968, and I have pre-Sesame Street memories of watching it, so I feel pretty sure WDCN carried it right away.
Wikipedia tells me that in 1968, NBC started broadcasting The Wizard of Oz. This is probably where I first saw it. I remember being terrified of the Witch, and not being able to watch that part.
The White Album, my favorite Beatles album, was released. Also, I have a Yellow Submarine book from my childhood, and this is the year the movie came out. Would we have gone to see it? Seems unlikely. Maybe I got the book later.
1968: And so, my education had begun.
Surely by 1967, the year I turned four, I was starting to develop personality traits that were identifiably "Galen". I don't know what those traits were, but I'm quite sure I still have them.
So what was my life like? How did I spend my days? Other than my immediate family, I know the Russos were an important part of my childhood. Dorothy Ann Russo, my "adopted grandmother", remained a friend and confidant until she died a few years ago. Her husband Remo was also a delight to my brother and me, dropping trails of uninflated balloons around the house, while swearing that he wasn't doing it.
I am named after the Russo's son Galen, who died at the