A Star is Born

It all started with an innocent complaint from a bored eight-year-old on a summer day.  

“There’s nuthin’ to do, Mama.”

“I’ve got something for you to do,” came the answer.

A suspicion immediately took over my eight-year-old brain. What kind of job was my mother going to promote?

I jumped up quickly, shaking off my lethargy and announced confidently, “I know what I’ll do, Mama. I’ll check the garden for ripe tomatoes.  You said they were gettin’ close to pickin’.”

She seemed to be satisfied with my choice of activity, so I skedaddled outside before she had a chance to change her mind.

I saw many unripe green tomatoes and a few turning pink, but after wandering down a long row of tomato plants, I spied only one red one.  

Now I knew one wasn’t enough for our family of seven to all enjoy sliced tomatoes.  I rationalized the only logical thing to do was to eat that one on the spot, knowing many more in our large farm garden would ripen shortly.  

The June weather offered me a very warm tomato, which made the juicy “fruit” taste delicious to my midwestern palate. (Yes, it is deemed to be a fruit.)

Boredom and a satisfied tummy moved me on to a new activity. I went walking out our driveway, where a large patch of milkweed bordered the road in front of our house. Their graceful plumes waved in the breeze like the dancers’ fans in the Hollywood musicals I had seen in the movies we attended when we went to town on Saturdays. Upon a sudden inspiration, I broke off one of the larger stems, which exuded a white sap. Despite its stickiness, I was able to grasp two plumes and there on a country dirt road in Western Nebraska, I became a Hollywood movie star in the style of… (while not exactly in the form of…) … the World War II pin-up star, Betty Grable. From the movies I had seen,  I copied her graceful dance steps with her colorful feathery plumes.  I perhaps was not quite the dancer she was, but please understand, Betty Grable did not have to contend with the stickiness of my milkweed plumes. However, at the close of my performance, I did get a standing ovation from the hardy milkweed patch.

Mother never did question me about the tomatoes, and by the time she needed them for a side dish, there was an ample supply of ripe tomatoes to grace our dinner table.

My penchant for drama productions never abated, and I found other venues in which to practice my public performance.  The best venue was the farm loading ramp for loading cattle into a truck. I clambered up the ramp and positioned myself at the top of the loading dock where I had a grand view of Daddy’s shop, the chicken yard, the garden, the windmill, and the silo where we stored grain.  It was a country orator’s delight, and I took full advantage of my large audience. I delivered parts of the Declaration of Independence and called the populace to vote for President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  I developed a good set of lungs, projecting show tunes out into the atmosphere so that all my fans could hear my voice. At times I gave a political speech, and many musicals were replayed for my farmyard audience.  

This was not the first call of the stage. Mother noted her two-year-old daughter’s joy in singing and performing for our neighbor down the road.  Jimmy McCroden was a 40-year-old bachelor who loved children. When he came to visit, I would drag out my little step stool, sit him down in the living room, and position my stool as a makeshift stage.

Jimmy knew the protocol.  I would rehearse my nursery rhymes and end with a flourish. Then it was time for hand clapping and cheers, as I took my final bow.

With each revelation of my theatrical talent, the family smiled at each dramatic episode. Instead of diminishing with adulthood, my dramatic drive increased!

Any observer should have known this must be a God design woven into my DNA, equipping me to deliver a gospel message in my adulthood.  God knew some things neither I nor my family knew back then.  

It didn’t end with the milkweed patch nor the loading dock where hundreds of chickens clucked their affirmation.  This love for the theatrical stage continued in pre-teen piano recitals, and in high school drama class, where I played a bosomy dowager who had fallen on hard times. My famous line in a one-act comedy brought down the house. I was explaining onstage my dilemma to a train conductor. With arms folded under my bosom, I lamented: “But you don’t understand—I am a widow with very little means of support.” 

I dare not list here all the ways a star was born but I promise in another chapter, to tell the full story of my most famous production, “The Impersonation of Harriet Adams.”