52 Weeks of Genealogy: Summer--Backstage at Cain (Pain) Park

This is a guest post by hubby, Wally, about his two summers working backstage at famed Cain Park in Cleveland Heights, OH, during the 1950s. The summer season at that time included 4 musicals (which ran for 2 weeks each). 

Cain Park in the 1940s - Cleveland State Library Special Collections

When I was 17 and 18 and still in high school, I worked as a summer apprentice at Cain Park Theater, and my younger sister worked on the paint crew. During the day, I built scenery and at night, I ran a follow-spot on actors during the shows. Because the stage was 90 feet wide, it needed a lot of scenery to fill it. We built almost a full-size house for Wizard of Oz, for example, and a working merry-go-round for Carousel.

It was a challenge because while one show was running, we were building the scenery for the next and handling backstage duties during the current show's evening performance. (We nicknamed the place "Pain Park" because we worked so hard.) Similarly, the cast had to rehearse the next show during the day while performing the current show each night. The cast included dancers and singers and up-and-coming performers . . . people like Dom DeLuise, for example, who I remember was just hilarious in The Red Mill.

The stage crew had a tradition of trying to distract the cast during the final performance of each show (as a prank). In Annie Get Your Gun, I ran a follow-spot from my position high on a brick tower (see two covered in ivy in photo above). During the show, Annie Oakley and her friends are returning from Europe by ship; they're hungry and Annie shoots into the sky to bring down dinner. I would then throw a stuffed seagull from the tower so it would land onstage. All the audience could see is that Annie shot into the sky and this bird dropped near her feet--except the night I missed and threw it into the orchestra pit. 

During the last performance, a friend was in the tower with me. When Annie shot, we threw every stuffed prop we could get our hands on: a pig, a roast turkey, a cat, a puppy. As these items rained down around the star, one of the cast adlibbed: "My, that's fine shootin', Annie!" Looking back, I'm surprised management didn't throw me out of the theater at that moment.
 

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52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants.

Saturday Shopping: Hardy Boys in Cleveland Heights

This is a guest post from my hubby, Wally, about his experiences as a 13-year-old (late 1940s) in Cleveland Heights, OH.

"The corner drug store--2 blocks from my home--was the neighborhood club house. In addition to being a pharmacy, it sold magazines, cigarettes/cigars, candy, and had a soda fountain (about that, more in a later post).

"I would stand at the magazine display reading comic books ("Captain Marvel," "Wonder Woman," "Classics Comics") and I suspect that the pharmacist, to distract me (and to save his comics from being dog-eared!), hired me (at age 13) to mop the floor, deliver prescriptions on my bicycle, and sort redeemed soda bottles. I worked a few days after school and on Saturdays.

"When word of my working got back to Monticello Jr High in Cleveland Heights, the principal told me I was too young to be working and that I'd be 'pushing up daisies' before I was 21. I ignored him.

"The pharmacist-owner paid me $5 per week. I spent most of it on Hardy Boys books. To get to the nearest bookstore, I had to take a bus or two and ride for at least half an hour--on my own. I remember feeling really pleased: A Hardy Boys' book may have been the very first book I bought for myself (and it's not the last, by far!). I think the books were $2.95 apiece.

"Over the months, I gradually accumulated the first 23 books in the series. The ostensible author was Franklin W. Dixon but I learned, as an adult, that the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books were the products of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, churned out by different writers. I grew up, joined the Army, and my mother eventually threw out or gave away my Hardy Boys collection. I never missed it."

Camp Days in Cleveland Heights, 1951 - Amanuensis Monday

Just yesterday I came across this photo reminder of my husband Wally Wood's days as a junior counselor at the YMCA camp outside of Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Wally's third from right in front row, next to the guy who looks like a Marine drill sgt (the actual counselor). Wally remembers his parents dropping him off for the week of camp with a "car full of crap" (clothes, equipment, etc).

This is under the heading of "amanuensis" because the campers and the senior counselor signed the back of this photo! Below are all the names, transcribed, as best as I can make out. Looks like the campers were practicing their cursive handwriting skills.

Don MacMillan
Jim Palermo
Shepard Linsday
Ted Gaeblen [maybe?]
Bob Berd
Arthur Krueger
Fred Wilson
Michael Glaser
Marc Konrissen
Doa Leo
Toms Stevens

PS the envelope tells a lot about Stan's Studio Inc., which took the photo. What it says is:

Stan's Studio Inc.

Weddings - Baby Pictures - Portraits

See Our Kiddyland, Cleveland's Largest and Finest

3025 West 25th Street

Cleveland 13, Ohio

Tel. MAIN 1-7066

More mystery photos

Today the mystery is: Who are these two handsome men in uniform, circa WWII, related to Wood family of Cleveland? Anybody recognize them?