Yesterday I was on a step-stool, hunting for something on a top shelf in the guest room when I spied a plastic bag shoved way back into the corner. I had no recollection of putting anything on the closet shelf.What is it? I wondered, and gingerly
pulled it forward and peered through the clear plastic to see lumpy parcels of
tissue and bubble wrap. OMG . . . could
it be? Is it possible . . . ?
Yes! In the bag were
three marionettes from my grade school days. THREE! Two “store-bought,” a clown
and a young man manufactured by Hazelle, and one I made as an eleven-year-old under
the tutelage of my sixth grade teacher, Miss Mary Metcalf.
I couldn’t have been more excited to find Holger, the character
who was hero of the script, Why the
Chimes Rang, a puppet play presented to the entire school body at McGilvra Elementary school (a Seattle public school) by our
classroom in December of 1951.
Why the Chimes Rang
was written in 1928, a faith-based play set in medieval Germany. The cathedral's chimes in the town ring, at the most, just once a year—and only when a truly
selfless gift is presented at the altar on Christmas Eve. When the play opens,
the chimes have not been heard for 100 years. Holger and his younger brother—orphans
who live with their uncle in poverty—are just headed out to church when an old
woman knocks at their cottage door.
If you think it’s bad form to pray before a public school football
game, imagine a public school teacher spending hours of classroom time preparing
her students to present overtly religious plays for the entire student body of their
public school. Everyone in class was involved--making the
marionettes from scratch and rehearsing the plays for weeks in the classroom.
I would not go back in time for anything—I’m not a devotee
to that fictional notion of the “good old days.” I think the sensitivity, awareness,
and respect shown to all beliefs that now prevail in public schools is a far superior approach than what we did then. But I am still grateful to have had that sixth grade experience.
And I am so thrilled to be reunited with Holger. After
all, he made the chimes ring—and I can still get a little teary thinking about
it.
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