Give Me a Hand- Part 3

Back to the Puppet Camp....

Now, I am sure that the people I would spend the next week with at Puppet Camp would be just like me. They'd be a tad overweight, love discussing what happend on "Doug" the past weekend, and were convinced that at some point in the very near future they'd be famous.

Not as such.

I walked into the room and was well aware that I stuck out. I was the youngest by a year or two and many of the people were from the Atlanta area to begin with. When I told one girl I was from Jacksonville, her eyebrows raised and she asked, "Why did you come all of the way up here for this?"

INDEED. I was shocked and appaled. Clearly this girl doesn't know how awesome this experience would be or she wouldn't be surprised that a kid drove seven hours to be there. For a week. With puppets. God, what a Negative Nancy.

I quickly bonded with this kid Evan...mainly because he was fat, too. He had a bowl haircut and wore tshirts with the Looney Tunes characters in punk gear. The ying to my yang. Anywho- we sat in the corner together and traded stories about what television shows we wish we were on and what we ate that day. The latter took longer to discuss.

There was also this one girl, we'll call her Polexia (just 'cus) and she was waaaaay too old to be there. I think she was 16 and clearly this was her punishment for the summer. She was constantly rolling her eyes, wore dark mascara and loved the Grateful Dead. I was convinced that I was in love with her, too. This was before I realized that thinking about Brad Pitt a lot was an indicator of my sexual preference.

This was August 1995, and Jerry Garcia passed away during the camp week. Polexia was devastated and I was there to console her. Consoling for an 11 year old is something akin to patting someone on the back and stagnantly saying, "There. There."

I think she knew I cared.

So, this motely crew of puppeteers came together that fateful morning to be told that we had one week to write, record and create our very own marionettes in a show that would be performed that Friday. Huzzah! Our guide was this guy I'll refer to as Animal...because he looked just like that particular Muppet. He was probably in his early 30s, hadn't had sex yet and was very eager to make puppets. At the time I thought he was awesome, put in retrospect I was probably subconsiously thinking, "Shit, is this my future?"

Next time....what happens when you put 10 tweens in a room and ask them to create a show.