My Audition as a Story Teller

I recently had an audition, not as a comic but as a story teller. I was sent several examples of stories told and WOW they were so powerful. Questions were asked about the stories to be submitted, were they intense and dramatic. The had to be true, did I move the story forward etc. Well no, the story was true but it did not fulfill any other of the requirements. The subject was to be EVOLUTION.

I gave this a modicum amount of thought and decided on the evolution of women. Cool huh? and current.

The Evolution of Women

You could always tell it was Monday when I was a little girl. It didn’t matter what time of year Monday morning was always the same from the time I was 2 until we moved to California when I was 13.

First you heard the radio, STELLA DALLAS or OUR GAL SUNDAY , these are the ones I remember but believe me there were others playing very loudly from the backyard of the house next door. Mr Carmichael, a very tall skinny OLD man was washing clothes with his renter the crabby grandmother of one of my playmates. They had a washing machine that they shared. I remember there were two big wash tubs and a wringer. Both being old they needed to play the radio very loud to hear it over their outdoor activity.

“This is the way we wash our clothes early Monday morning.” That nursery rhyme song directed the chores for the week and many if not all but my mother adhered to those rules. I don’t know

when my mother washed clothes. I only remember her washing sheets in the bath tub one time in all my life. We did not have a washer woman or any kind of washing machine. I always lived in apartment houses until my husband bought us our first home. I slept on the couch in the living room and I am pretty sure I’d notice if anyone was washing clothes. Daddy certainly didn’t.

To say times were different is ridiculous. Children today wouldn’t even recognize life 70 years ago. My oldest grandson once found a 45 RPM record and asked his mom what it was. She told him about record players and that there was one song on the disk. He said, “No really Mom, what is it?”

When I was young my Mom explained that married women always wore their hair up in a chignon or French twist, or they could cut it short. A married woman would never wear her hair long. loose and free. My Mom had beautiful long auburn hair and I never saw it down unless she was drying it after shampooing once a week. Can you imagine only washing your hair once a week. I was probably in high school before I realized I could wash it whenever I wanted to.

I always called my mother’s friends by their last name Mrs so and so. Well there was once… My mother had been explaining the facts of life to me, I was at least 7, and she told me the ladies part was called the Vagina. Not long after she finished the doorbell rang. I answered it…it was Mrs Yeager. I said, “Mom, Vagina is here.” (Her first name was Virginia.) I thought I would be so embarrassed when I saw her again but not to worry non of us ever saw her after that. My Mom’s new friend was Mrs Benway and even mother called her Benway. I wonder what her first name rhymed with.

When my husband and I got married we rented a house and then we BOUGHT a house. We had to live in the City of Torrance and this was the least expensive house in Torrance. 860 square feet, 2 bedrooms and a den. There was a painting of Bambi on the wall in the children’s room that was so frightening the girls slept with us until Sam could paint over it. I don’t remember how many coats of paint it took but those eyes kept staring throughout layer after layer of paint.

There were two clothes lines in the back yard and Sam bought me a used washing machine. Man that was progress. After a few months the machine only emptied and filled but that was better than the bathtub. I had two babies in diapers.

My best (and I consider still best ) friend Sheila and her husband Fred bought a house around the corner. We have known one another since high school and coincidentally lived two or three blocks from one another in Culver City and then they bought a house about a block away in Torrance. We would borrow things from one another. Sheila would call or I’d call her then “I’ll start running at the count of ten” and we’d run toward each other make the exchange and run back home. That way we didn’t have to get the kids up from naps etc. Good thing Child Protective Services weren’t around. Sheila, as I said was my best friend and Fred and Sam were great friends too. The shared a huge interest in Ghost towns and would travel to every part of Nevada looking for relics of the past.

(I bet you are wondering about now about the Evolution of Women and how this all ties in. Well you can stop wondering as the end is near and you will soon understand why I did not go on the audition.)

Sam and Fred were off to Nevada. The first day they were gone I did all the laundry and hung it on the lines in the back yard. It dried that afternoon but I didn’t take it in right away, as a matter of fact I didn’t take it in until the day they were due home. As dinner time approached I bathed and dressed and fixed a nice dinner. Sam had a wonderful time in Nevada. We put the kiddies to bed and well you know, young people, he’d been gone three days. As I got undressed for bed and taking off the bra that I had taken in with the wash that day… a moth flew out. Sam looked at me as the moth flew past him, “I wasn’t gone that long.”

That was my story about the evolution of women. Now you can see why I didn’t go on that audition. Also i listened to A story by Jamie Dewold. Amazing. (The Girl In the Hallway)