A Star is Born


One of the many activities that my parents had me take part in was the Cub Scouts. When you turn seven you were able to join and take part in the activities that were available. The different levels that you could achieve as a Cub started with the Bobcat badge, then the Wolf badge, then Bear and then Lion. Finally, there were a lot of different activities that you need to do at each level to be able to advance to the next rank. The final step was to receive the Arrow of Light that you were able to wear on your shirt as a Boy Scout when you entered the troop at twelve years old.
As one of the Cub Scouts I went on many activities that were designed to help us do enough to receive one of the levels. One of the activities that we went to was to a television studio where we were to be on TV. In 1951 most of the programs were broadcast live. You can imagine the lectures and downright threats to life, limb, and worst of all, telling the bishop and our parents. This would have been a double whammy for me since my dad was both.
We were all pretty well behaved. We had a fantastic den mother; her name was Loy Holt. We were going to demonstrate the making of leis to wear around your neck out of crepe paper. You took a needle and a long string, cut up some crepe paper to make about two-inch-wide pieces and then threaded the needle through the crepe paper while twisting the paper. It was fun to do; we had practiced doing it at her home the prior week.
It wasn’t all that hard to do; in fact, it was quite easy, but we were going to be on TV being filmed live for a whole half hour. We were going to be STARS.
This is a test pattern that was on all the time when
there was nothing being televised
We arrived and there was one camera in a large room. There was a picture on the camera that we could see, and it was the familiar test pattern, which meant that nothing was being filmed or sent out to any home. The person that was going to introduce what we were doing and talk to us came out and stressed how we were to behave when the camera was on. I think that with a bunch of seven to eleven-year-old boys, they were possibly somewhat worried about what we might do.
The lights came on and the familiar countdown from the test pattern, and then we were on. For one-half hour we made and demonstrated the making of crepe paper leis. The lady that was in charge of the program came and talked to each scout and to the cub leader. We all had a turn and showed what color of paper we were using and why we had chosen it. Almost all of us were able to come up with a reason that we had chosen that particular color of paper. The real reason was because that was one of the colors that had been given us to cut up.
After the half hour was over, and we were getting ready to go, we were each given a box. It looked like a game box you might find a game of Monopoly in. On the front was a picture of Peter Pan,
Peter Pan action figures or
possibly paper doll set
Wendy, and Tinker Bell. When we were loading up in the car some of the Cubs opened them to see what was in them. I looked, but I kept my closed, and waited until I got home to open my box.
It posed a little problem for me, because when I opened the box, I could see that it was paper dolls. Each of the people in the story were there in their underwear and a large number of paper sheets with clothes for each of them. The clothes had to be cut out leaving the tabs that would wrap around the cardboard figure. What I had was a paper doll set. I thought that it was a dumb, stupid, and a downright horrible thing to give to a bunch of Scouts. There was no way I, a young man of the male persuasion, was going to play with paper dolls.
About an hour after registering my total objection and anger at the studio for giving the Scouts such a silly thing, you could find me sitting on the floor cutting out the clothes. I wasn’t playing with the paper doll set; I was just making sure that they all had clothes on. They did have clothes and sometimes more than one set. I never played with them, but I spent a great deal of time over the next month checking and making sure they kept their clothes on, and maybe once in awhile seeing if they needed a different outfit on.
P.S. They were still around when my sister Carolyn and our adopted sister JoAnn were old enough to play with paper dolls.

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