From Puppets to Tears: Screwing Over Depression Era Kids

What would compel puppeteers to disappoint a whole auditorium of schoolkids who finally got to laugh and have fun? We can only guess.

My father told me about this story from his childhood. Even decades after it happened to him, he still thought of it. Thought of it enough to tell his daughter about it.

No doubt, he still found a polite way to ask himself, “What the fuck was wrong with those people?”

Now, years later, I still think of his telling of the tale. And not so politely, I ask, “What the fuck was wrong with those people?”

A Quick Bit of Background

My father was born in 1930, less than a full year after the start of the Depression. He lived in the Cleghorn neighborhood of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Like many around them, his family struggled. His mother worked hard and grew her own vegetables. Pennies were pinched so tightly that the coins probably whimpered a little.

How poor were they? Prepare for the TMI. When he was very young, my father swallowed a dime. His dime. What did his mother do? A doctor’s visit would be too expensive. But a dime was precious. So his mother checked his poop every day until she found his dime. (Yes, of course, she cleaned it before handing it back to him.)

The School

Like many of the kids in his area, my father attended a Catholic school in his hometown of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Back then, all the teachers were nuns. The nuns came from all over the world, so you might have a German nun teaching you math or an Irish nun teaching you how to speak French. (Begorrah!)

The Fateful Performance

As the story goes, one day, some puppeteers came to his school for a performance. This was a rare chance for a break. This was the 1930s. Movies were a dime, but kids rarely had a dime. Live performances in a school? Very rare.

So when the nuns and other staff members gathered the children into the school auditorium, it must have been exciting. Even before the kids knew what was happening.

Then, it turned out they were going to get to watch a puppet show. It must have been like watching magic happen before their eyes. And funny, too!

Maybe it was a traditional Punch and Judy show. To those kids, this would be like watching the Keystone Kops tossed together with Laurel and Hardy live in their school.

So what did the kids do? They laughed! Loudly.

To coin a phrase, “Well, duh.”

What did the performers expect? Looking back, I still wonder.

The poor, Depression-era schoolchildren were laughing uproariously because most of them had never seen something like that. Certainly not live!

From Laughter to Tears

But the joy would soon flee the auditorium.

Why? Apparently, the kids were having too much fun.

Uhm. Run that by me again?

One of the performers said something like, “We can’t perform like this. Please tell the children they will have to calm down, or we’ll leave.”

That’s right. The performers complained to the nuns because the kids were laughing too loudly. At their performance. What performer does this? “These kids are enjoying my act too much. I can’t take it anymore!”

Nope. I don’t get it, either. So there must have been something else going on, whether in their lives or in their minds.

Maybe they were upset because the kids couldn’t hear the jokes. Maybe it threw off their timing. Maybe they were just callous jerks. Maybe one of the performers was hung-over.

None of it make sense.

The nuns were forced to tell the kids to quiet down. But of course, that was an impossible thing to ask of a bunch of kids with pent-up energy.

So the kids kept laughing.

And the performers stopped the show in the middle and left!

Imagine the moans of disappointment that must have rocked the auditorium. The tears of frustration. The shouts. The anger. The feelings of shock and betrayal.

Imagine the nuns forced to calm the kids down and herd them back into their classrooms. How disappointed the nuns themselves must have felt. How frustrated!

The performers didn’t care. They didn’t have to deal with this. They had gone by then.

Maybe the puppeteers were exhausted after a long run of performing in school after school for a pittance. Maybe the guy in charge of the puppeteers was tired (or cranky or mean), and the other performers had to go along with it. Maybe they were possessed by their puppets like characters in a horror movie.

Whatever. I don’t care. They still let down those kids. At a time they most needed fun in their lives, those puppeteers taught them bitterness and betrayal.

Postscript

When Dad told me about this story, you could tell it still pissed him off. He speculated if the performers wanted a break and uses the kids’ laughter as an excuse to get that. (They probably still got paid, even though they put on at most half of their show!)

Those performers are long dead by now. (Dad would have been 92 this year.) Still, if I could have spoken with them, I would have asked them, “What the fuck was wrong with you?”

If you like my stories, or if you want to read more stories by authors like me, please click here to upgrade to full membership. This is an affiliate link, meaning I receive a financial incentive for new referrals.