Imaginings of a Dorothy in Four Frames

Saturday, November 3, 1956***

Saturday, November 3, 1956***

    I am Gail, Gail Gunn, husband of Dorothy, father of Ray and Jack and Bert. I married Dorothy in Kansas after the war and we moved up to Grand Rapids, Michigan. We are very happy, but sometimes Dorothy will freeze and she will mumble something about our name being so close to some other name or the fact that we have three boys and not three girls or that Grand Rapids seems right, but everything is still off by two states. Of course, I think of this simply as a lovable quirk.

    There are other quirks, but they so pale to all else I love about Dorothy that I never mention them. Okay, I will share an example now, but just to get it off my chest and I will never mention it again.

    The clearest example of what I am saying happened when we bought our first black and white television in the late fall of 1956. I think it was going to be the Christmas present to the family, but we couldn't wait. There was going to be some first showing of a family movie we were excited to see so we set up the television and swung the coach around and all five of us piled on the coach, Dorothy and I in the middle with our shallow wooden bowl full of popcorn and the boys all around us in arms length of the community bowl. My guess is that Ray was on one side and Jack on the other and that the youngest, Bert, probably only six at the time, standing on the cushions behind and between Dorothy and myself.

    We watched the movie and enjoyed the popcorn and we were so tickled to have our own television set like so many of our neighbors. The movie was entertaining, somewhat scary, somewhat funny. The boys curled up on us so that all their heads were resting on our sides or laps. I think Ray was ten then and Jack eight. This detail stands out because this was about the last time all five of us fit on the couch so comfortably for such a long period.

    When the movie ended, the boys were all still full of energy, and since it was a Saturday, they were not ready for bed. Dorothy stood up and faced us. She lowered her face as if she was going to share some sacred secret. She said the movie was good. It had most the story right. But it was three or four tellings away from the real story, like when you play telephone and the words change as the secret makes its way around the circle. She said that movie was a worn ditto, a faint inking of the original. She was now going to tell the story unfiltered in all its glory. I was as mesmerized as the boys. I had married the thirteen inch black and white Dorothy from Kansas. While I had seen glimpses of it before, what stood before us was a technicolor movie theater Dorothy, large and strong, loud and lively.

    The boys heads popped up from the cushions. This was not going to be a passive listening. The boys would have to join Dorothy at times in acting out her tale. It was like the movie we had just watched, but it was very, very different. Instead of watching a story, we were the story. Ray was asked to join her first. His character was a scarecrow who needed a brain. This is very funny because though Ray is very intelligent he can be a little forgetful or scattered. They danced around and the other two boys could not wait for their turn. Jack was next and he was the tin man who started rusty from neglect but then after oiling was able to dance too. He was in search of a heart. Again, this was so true because Jack can be a little rough and we sometimes have to point out to Jack how his actions impact others and then he becomes most tender. Lastly, Bert bounded from the couch. He was to be a lion, but a lion looking for courage. Bert, being the youngest, appreciated the protection of his older brothers and did not usually make a move without following Ray and Jack's lead. So Bert's search for courage was a natural fit too.

    Dorothy not only told her story but we acted it out. I was a little bit of everything, a Munchkin, an apple tree with an attitude, and a Guardsman who chanted "O-e-O Oooo-O." The boys switched parts too. A particular highlight was when they were flying monkeys and the boys bounced and leapt from the coach, the only time I remember condoning such an action. They were so into the story that they could both play the monkeys and the scarecrow, tin man, and lion at the same time as the monkeys carried off Dorothy.

    When the story ended, the boys wanted their mom to tell it again. She was as radiant and happy as I ever saw her. She hugged the boys and said it had been fun for her too and that they would have to do this again sometime. But we never did. Not quite like that. That was a magic moment when we could easily fit all on the same couch and we were so close that Dorothy was willing to share a secret story that was always a part of her. She would leak parts of this story to me over our years together, but it was almost as if she made a pact with herself to keep the story submerged and concentrate on our day to day.

    A dozen years later, we bought a console color television to replace our now small and inadequate black and white set. It so happened that that same movie that the five of us watched on the same couch in 1956 was showing a few weeks after we bought our new set. Of course, now it was only Dorothy and myself on the couch. I must say that the portion of the movie that was in color was most glorious. I wished the boys could have seen that in 1956. However, it is strange, that though the movie was a vivid feast for the eyes, its telling of the story still paled to Dorothy's magical audience participation version that she shared with us that night. I wondered whether if we saw the color movie in 1956, maybe she would not have shared her superior version. Whether it is a quirk of fate or a quirk of Dorothy, I have come to realize that quirks are to be treasured. Maybe not understood, but treasured.

***Saturday, November 3, 1956 is the date that The Wizard of Oz premiered on CBS television.