Our Carport Theater

We had lots of fun in our carport when we were little.  It was a great place to play as well as to park cars. 

Mom had been in lots of community plays when she was a teenager, so we grew up hearing stories about acting and performing.  I suppose it was natural for us to make our own theater in  the carport and put on neighborhood performances while we played.  I'll never forget one such play.

We invited all the kids in our neighborhood to come over on this particular afternoon.  We had moved the kitchen chairs out into the carport, lined up with every other chair we could scrounge up from inside and outside the house.  I think we charged our audience a nickle to attend, but we weren't very demanding.  If they didn't have the money we lent it to them.  We wanted their attendance more than their cash.

Once everyone was seated the program began, first with a serious of short vignettes based on television commercials we thought were funny, like a little boy walking along the beach, finding a magic bottle on the sand. He picked it up, rubbed it, and suddenly a genie poofed onto the stage, (special effects were usually accomplished with the aid of blankets.)  The genie asked the boy what three wishes he wanted.  The boy said, "I want a million dollars," and POOF, he had a check for a million dollars in his hand.  Next he wanted a brand new sports car, and POOF, he could see his new car waiting for him around the corner, out of sight from the audience.  Then the boy couldn't think of what he wanted for his third wish, so he turned on his radio and began singing with a commercial, "Oh I wish I were an Oscar Myer Wiener," and POOF, he was!  We thought we were so funny.

The final play, the main production, was about a famous doctor performing surgery on an unsuspecting patient.  We had dragged Dad's work table out from his shop, draped it with a big  blanket, and placed under it , hidden by the blanket, every big pot and pan, rolling pin, bowl, egg beater, and other cooking utensil we could steal from the kitchen.  The skit began by the doctor asking his patient what was wrong. 

"My stomach hurts really bad," the patient complained, so the doctor told him to lie down and he would operate. 

The doctor (I think it was Keith, and Richard Brinton was the patient, but it may have been the other way around,) held up a big butcher knife they had confiscated from Mom's knife drawer, and pretended to cut open the  sick man.  (I remember the discussion they had with Mom prior to the performance, promising her over and over again that they knew how to handle a knife and that they would be careful!) 

Reaching down behind the blanket draped table, the doctor pulled out a big frying pan, held it up, and in astonishment said, "No wonder you have a belly ache!"  Everyone laughed and laughed, as the doctor continued to pull one thing after another out of the sick man's belly.   They thought they were so clever!

Most of our skits came from boy scout programs Keith and Richard had seen, but once in awhile Mom added her ideas.  She told us about "The Oogie Boogie Man" and plays she had put on in her backyard with her brothers and sisters when they were young.  There never seemed to be an end to the ideas we could come up with, and it makes me wonder where all our creativity has gone.  I can hardly think of something to do keep my grand kids entertained these days, and the only thing my kids can figure out to do is watch TV or a movie.  I think our brains have gone soft.

One of my favorite skits I loved to put on (before my knees got old and laying down on the floor and getting up again became such a slow process) was accomplished with just an old blanket as my prop.  I would put the blanket around my shoulders like a shawl, gaze down at the floor, and exclaim in my best southern drawl, "Poor wounded soldier, tell me your name, so I can tell your parents back home."

Then I would twirl the blanket around onto the floor, throw myself on top of it, and gazing up into the air, say, "No."

Grabbing the blanket I would jump up, put the "shawl" back around my shoulders, and look back at the floor.  "Poor wounded soldier, tell me your name so I can tell your parents back home."  I would coax.

Again I would throw the blanket down and flop on top of it.  Gazing up at the imaginary Florence Nightingale I would reply, "No."

Jumping up I would throw the blanket around my shoulders, stamp my foot, and exclaim, "Poor wounded soldier, tell me your name so I can tell your parents back home!"

One more time I would throw down the blanket, lie down, and say, "My parents already know my name."

Oh, for the simple days when even dumb things made us smile,  (and when I could jump up and lay down without having to pull myself back up by holding onto a chair or another person.)