Off to see the Wizard
All roads lead back to that yellow brick one
When I was a child, my mother taught us a song.
Oh, the leaves are red and yellow in the fall
Oh, the leaves are red and yellow in the fall
Oh, the leaves are red and yellow and the apples taste so mellow
Oh, the leaves are red and yellow in the fall
I thought about that on my walk this morning. Sunday is the first day of fall, and our trees in the deep South are still weeks away from showing off a rich, autumn palette.
But this is also the opening weekend for “The Wizard of Oz” at Theatre Macon. And my mindset has not been so much on red and yellow leaves but ruby red slippers and yellow brick roads.
It’s personal when your 9-year-old granddaughter is in the cast and your 30-year-old son constructed much of the set for the show on the same stage he was once a young actor, too.
It’s personal when it is, was, and always will be your favorite movie … and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” remains your favorite song.
My life has been in lockstep with the script. I know almost every word of every line. I could be an understudy for the Scarecrow and Wicked Witch.
My granddaughter looked at me the other day when I kept going off-script into impromptu monologues in scene after scene. I took some poetic license.
We're off to see the Gris-sard,
The Wonderful Gris-sard of Gris.
We hear he is a Gris of Gris if ever a Gris there was
Because of the wonderful things he does.
She rolled her eyes and asked me how I knew all that.
“Well, Sweet Pea,’’ I said. “I’ve been rehearsing it my entire life.’’
My dream role, of course, is the Wizard. It’s on my bucket list. I keep hoping I will be asked to audition for a school play or community theatre production. You’re never too old to play the Wiz.
When I was a teacher, I would often shout “Silence, whippersnappers!!!” if my students got a little too rowdy. They would tremble in fear. (Not really, but it’s a nice thought.)
The Wizard of Oz became the first movie to be shown annually (CBS) on commercial TV when it debuted in November 1956, the year I was born. I was probably 6 or 7 when I saw it for the first time. Of course, my family watched the entire movie in black and white. We had no choice. We did not get a color TV until I was in the fifth grade.
So the first couple of times, I guess I missed out on Dorothy being carried away by a twister, leaving the dull, gray farm life of Kansas and waking up in Technicolor in Munchkinland.
I have a few personal bricks on my yellow, brick road. When we visited the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., I took a photograph of Judy Garland’s slippers in a display case.
The late Fred Causey was the biggest Oz fan I’ve ever known. He once told me the movie would never be duplicated.
“It was the right script with the right actors with the right songs,’’ he said.
When you arrived at his house you got the feeling you weren’t in Georgia anymore. More than 3,400 Oz-related items once filled every nook, cranny, corner, wall and mantel of his home at the corner of Third Street and U.S. 41 in Vienna.
The license plate on his red Chevrolet read "WIZ OZ." The sidewalk that led to his house was made of yellow bricks, and each room inside was painted a different color of the rainbow.
He was a school librarian who owned more than 500 books on Oz and the original sheet music of “Over the Rainbow.’’ He had Oz neckties, snow globes, Christmas ornaments, collector's plates, doormats, pillowcases and puzzles.
He even had 17 autographs from the original "munchkins.''
I did not get Karl Slover’s autograph, but I did get to interview him.
That’s also why it’s somewhat fitting I am having a trip down Oz lane this weekend.
Saturday would be his 106th birthday.
Slover was one of the last surviving munchkins when he died in 2011. There were 124 “little people” in the cast.
I wrote a column about him in 2005, when he was living in an assisted living facility in Dublin.
He was 21 years old when the movie came out in 1939. Born in Hungary with dwarfism, he stood 4 feet-4 inches and weighed 85 pounds when he appeared in the classic movie.
He and the other Munchkins were on screen for less than 10 minutes and became immortalized for a lifetime.
He played the four Munchkin roles -- a soldier, the first of the trumpeters announcing the death of the wicked witch, the only boy “sleepyhead” in the nest, and one of the Munchkins who led Dorothy to the start of the yellow brick road.
“I know I didn’t like having four parts,’’ he told me. “I was having to change clothes so much.’’
We welcome you to Munchkinland
Tra-la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la
Tra-la-la-la-la, la-la
From now on you'll be history
You'll be hist- You'll be hist- You'll be hist-
You'll be history
And we will glorify your name
You will be a bust
Be a bust
Be a bust
In the hall of fame.
The Wonderful Wizard of Gris
I love it. Great memories down the yellow brick road.
I have a hunch about where you came up with your granddaughter's pet name. 😉 Did Officer Don's show have any influence?
Love it, too. We waited for it with much anticipation each year.