The Road Show

When my family got cable television in the 1970s, a whole new afterschool world opened up for my siblings and me. Before cable, afterschool television was limited to Flippo the clown’s afternoon movie (CBS affiliate in Columbus, WBNS); The Electric Company, Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood (PBS’s WOSU) or maybe, if we were lucky, the ABC affiliate would air an Afterschool Special. Slim pickin’s, for sure.

But then my parents subscribed to cable TV and instead of being limited to four stations, we had dozens of channels. We did not get a better TV when we got cable. We were still having to use pliers to change the channel. But still.

Overnight we went from eating are usual afternoon bowl of cereal at the kitchen table to shoving a chair close to the TV set and eating our cereal out of the box with our hands, forfeiting both the milk and the bowl.

We were mesmerized with our programming options, and soon had a list of favorites: Our Gang, Little Rascals, Batman, The Munsters, Addams Family, Popeye and of course, The Three Stooges. I once heard that only boys recognized the true genius of the Three Stooges, but the show was among one of my favorites…because it was so stupid. They were so stupid.

My brother Jeff and I enjoyed Batman, Popeye and the Three Stooges so much that we put together a little skit in which we acted out a compilation of the three shows and took it on the road. And by “on the road” I mean, we acted out our skit to a little four-year-old who lived on the block behind our house. We discovered the little boy when we were wandering around the neighborhood one afternoon. He was playing in a screened-in back porch and we befriended him.

We loved making the little boy laugh and we were able to do it by pretending we were slugging each other.  Our visits to the little boy became more regular and our play fights became more choreographed. With sound effects borrowed from Batman, “Pow!” “Bam!”, wind-up punches copied from Popeye, and double eye pokes stolen from Moe, we had the little guy hooting with laughter and begging for more.

We were actors and we had a hit! Until that one day.

As usual, we showed up outside the little boy’s back porch. He was there, ready to laugh.

Jeff and I started the show. We often argued about which role each of us would play and ended up alternating roles each time we visited the little boy. During this show, I would be playing Popeye and Jeff would be Bluto. That meant, when I did the slugging, Jeff would do the falling down.

“I’m going to give you the ol’ onesie-twosie!” I hollered – quoting Olive Oyl while playing Popeye — as I wound up my right arm and swung at my brother’s left cheek, stopping just short of making contact. “Bam!”

And, in a finely executed dance, Jeffrey chin bucked back and he fell backwards…and hit the back of his head on a cement block hiding in the tall grass.

Jeff sat up, stunned.

“Are you okay?” I asked, just then seeing the big brick.

“Yeah,” he answered. “But let’s go home.”

We told the little boy the show was over and we’d see him next time.

We started walking home. Jeffrey rubbed his head where it had hit the cement block. When he brought his hand back in front of him to see why his hand was wet, he saw that it was covered with blood. And all hell broke loose.

One minute he was calm and talking about what we were going to do after lunch, to sheer panic and paranoia.

He took off, running like a bandit and screaming, “I aren’t going to die, am I? I aren’t going to die, am I?”

I ran with him. I didn’t offer him any reassurance because I didn’t know for sure whether he would live or not. We rushed into the house and because Jeff was incoherent, I explained to Mom what had happened. She had Jeff hold a wet washcloth to the back of his head while she gathered her things to take him to the hospital. All the while Jeff kept repeating the question that I had not answered, “I aren’t going to die, am I?”

My mom seemed certain when she assured Jeff that he wasn’t going to die. Everyone chose to ignore my brother’s improper English. No one wants the last words they hear before they die to be a critique of their grammar.

By the time my brother got back from the hospital with stitches, he too was convinced he wasn’t going to die. Instead, he started complaining about having to get part of his head shaved. This was travesty to Jeffrey. Not only because he was embarrassed to go to school, but because he had always boasted that when he turned eighteen, he was going to grow his hair down to his butt. In his uninformed mind, having part of his head shaved, moved the attainment of his long hippy hair back even further. And he weren’t very happy about that.

Jeff and I didn’t put on any more shows for the little neighbor boy. I’m not sure we ever learned his name and I don’t know if his mother ever knew that we put on shows for her son. I know that until the day of the injurious prat fall, my mom had no idea we had a road show or how successful we were to our audience of one.