This was to be my second paying job. I played the roles of Dusty and Ding Dong in a Macy’s store window in New Haven during the X-mas break from college. I did four shows an hour to a pre-recorded version of The True Tales of Ding Dong (as told to Dusty). It was grueling. Kids loved it, I loved it, and I thought I was a puppeteer until…

The puppet world is a pretty small world. My name got bandied about a bit, and I was approached by a Chicago company planning a trip with the show Pinocchio to South Africa and Mozambique. I signed an eleven week contract, but the puppets were stolen at Kennedy Airport in New York. The trip got cancelled. I still got paid for eleven weeks of work. That’s the part that made my Dad proud.

When I got out of college I met with a headhunter type. He thought I had a real gift for puppet work, so my next job was with the NYC Department of Parks. They had a puppet troupe that took puppet shows to New York City neighborhoods that needed free, live entertainment.

I did not handle the puppets this time. I was “Mr. Games”. My job was to keep several hundred hot kids sitting on broken glass and pavement, entertained. I would lead the kids in all kinds of games, but my most vivid memory was in the South Bronx, saying the phrase, “Simon says put down your weapons.”