Puppetry

This is a classic 1987 Model-A puppet.

No.. this post isn't about being manipulated by a principal (ala being "puppet-ed") or about a new superintendent (ala "puppet regime"). It is 100% about puppets...and it's a story that I've been trying to avoid for a long while now. The great negro league pitcher, Sachel Paige once said "Never look behind you, because something might be gaining on you" Well, I have. It's puppets.

It's all goes back to my childhood (not really) where I would regularly engage in playing with puppets (or "puppetry" as it is called by us experts) both before and after school, long into the wee hours of the morn. One day, at the age of 19, my father told me to put the puppets up and go to college and  that was it. There's some verse in the Bible about "when I became a man, I put away childish things" and this pretty much fit the bill. The puppets and I went separate ways just as did Pete Best and the Beatles. We we're just better off apart. I dare not go back there.

Fast forward several years and thousands of dollars in student loans later later: puppets are making a comeback. Do you remember how I told you that most elementary school counselors were females, in their late 50's? Apparently 50 year old women love puppets. When I inherited my new position, the retiring counselor made sure to relay "..and by the way, I left the box of puppets for you", to which I shuddered. The state that I live in further solidifies the place of puppetry in the classroom by providing counselors with a state guidance curriculum that utilizes puppets in more than 50% of it's lessons. Either the department of elementary and secondary education is made up of 50 year old's who play with puppets all day long, or kids really do like puppets.

The time is coming neigh when I will have to open up that box of puppets and start engaging the children with silly voices and names like "Thad". I guess this is one more of those times in life, where putting away my own preferences, is really what's better for me.. and for others.