Heck the Dolls ...
- Liz Flaherty
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
by Debra Jo Myers
Having just wrapped up a fabulous theater run at Ole Olsen Memorial Theatre portraying Sue in Heck the Dolls with Chardonnay, my own holiday memories have been on overload. For those who didn’t see the play, it centered around a character, Grandma Sue, sharing memories of holidays gone by with her granddaughter. Each one is portrayed in a flashback featuring a younger Sue. That’s the part I played. Reliving Sue’s memories sent me into my own holiday reminiscing.
In the first flashback in the play, Sue’s best friend Becky cooks her first turkey, and is surprised when she finds the “amputated body part” inside. Reminded me of cooking my first turkey. I was away from home in Texas and doing it alone. I didn’t find the neck or the giblets, and I wasn’t even looking for them. I cooked the turkey with both of them still in it! I began to smell something strange two hours into cooking time. Turned out the plastic bag holding the giblets was melting and part of the turkey was destroyed. Of course, I threw the whole thing away. Lesson learned. Glad I was alone.
Next Sue is tasked with baking and frosting six dozen Christmas cookies for her book club. Personally, the only time I’ve made that many cookies was the year when I was too poor to purchase gifts for family or friends. Instead, I spent a weekend baking, decorating, and packaging two dozen cookies for twelve people. My kitchen was a disaster and so was I! After that, I didn’t want to bake a cookie again!
Sue hates getting Christmas card letters. I feel the opposite. I wish I got more of them. I receive one every year from my aunt and cousin. I don’t see them as much as I’d like, so I look forward to catching up reading their letter. That’s it, just that one.
One of my favorite scenes in Heck the Dolls with Chardonnay is when Sue and Becky arrive at Best Buy at 2am on Black Friday to be one of the first 100 in line. I was never much of a Black Friday shopper, but there were two years I did venture out. The first was to get my daughter a Cabbage Patch Doll in 1983. I had taken a part time job over the holidays at K-Mart and turned out it was my ticket. When the shipment came, I grabbed one before they were ever stocked. People swarmed the guy trying to put them on the shelves. After that, no one could get their hands on them. I paid $19.99 for mine, but now they go for between $5000-$10,000!
Then there was the year of the Power Rangers. They had just introduced the green one, and my son wanted it badly. It was the most popular toy that Christmas in 1993. A local department store was only able to get 160 of them for Black Friday. I was there at 2am since they opened at 5am. When they did, everyone rushed toward the display. I ended up getting one, but they were all taken within minutes.
In the play, Sue and her husband work unsuccessfully to assemble a desk for their daughter. It reminded me of putting together hot wheel tracks, Barbie houses, and one year, a swing set. Glad those days are behind me!
Finally, when Sue and best friend began sharing their past New Year’s resolutions, Sue reveals that one of hers was to have a mammogram. She finds out she has breast cancer. This one hit me hard, since my own best friend, Cathy, recently received that diagnosis. Just like Sue, Cathy had to go through chemotherapy, and surgery. Her mother died of breast cancer when Cathy was young, so she had to make that tough choice. Cathy is handling it better than I thought she would. And now, she’s in the cancer-free segment. Praise the Lord!
As always, whenever I am part of a production for Ole Olsen, whether it be as an actor or director, I come away from it with lessons and memories. But getting to relive my own holidays, while acting out Sue’s, has been fun and bittersweet. Big thanks to my director, Lynn Weil, for entrusting me with this role.
My best Christmas memory will never change, even though it didn’t happen until three days later. I felt like a terrible mother that year to my two little girls. I didn’t want to decorate the house or put up the tree. I didn’t want to go shopping (back then you had to physically GO shopping) or wrap gifts. I was miserable. I spent the day enduring the aches and pains of being nine months pregnant, thinking it was the worst Christmas ever. My son was due Christmas Day, and I spent the day begging him to arrive. He didn’t come that day, but when he did come on December 28th, the 1989 Christmas holidays became my favorite memory.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! And may your own holidays be memorable!
Debra Jo Myer’s trilogy of books is on sale this holiday season – get Vex and Valor, Verdicts and Vows, and Verve and Virtue all for $25! Pick up from her and get them autographed!
Also available on Amazon. https://tinyurl.com/tjrc6wxm
