As I recall it was usually July when the Toby Shows came. Performed in a tent, they were called Toby Shows because the hero was often called Toby. They opened on Monday night and played through Saturday night with a special matinee on Saturday afternoon.

The Saturday afternoon show was less expensive than the night shows. I could go to that with my friends. The family, including me, attended two night performances during the week. I yearned to attend a performance every night, but alas, it was not to be.

I had a large tent in the backyard. From time to time, we took it down and, folding it into our big Dodge car, Eloise, set off to some camping spot with a swimming hole. There we and whoever had accompanied us spent the night in the tent, sleeping on army cots, spent most of the next day swimming and came home tired and sunburned.

On one such trip, the daughter of the man who eventually became superintendent of schools swung out over the river on a rope swing. She should have let go away from the bank, but she lost her nerve. When she finally let go she was back to shore again. She came down, mouth open, and knocked loose one of her front teeth on a log lying along the bank.

It was a hysterical scene. My mother ordered Bonita to hold the tooth in its socket with her fingers. We left the tent and luggage with relatives to be returned to us later and took off for home.

Bonita didn’t shed a tear until we pulled up in her parents’ yard. There she gave a loud wail as soon as they came out in the yard to meet us.

&uot;Stop that,&uot; snapped my mother, who was considerably shaken by the whole incident. &uot;Keep holding your tooth in place.&uot;

Despite the fact that it was Sunday, Bonita’s parents managed to rouse their family dentist and took Bonita straight to his office still in her bathing suit. He said jokingly that she should keep a cork between her teeth. That’s what she did for several days. We learned to understand what she was saying past the cork.

The tooth grew in beautifully and didn’t even wobble thereafter.

We didn’t do much camping; I was the only one in the family who thought it was fun. Even I preferred the tent standing fully open in the back yard. Its most important function as far as I was concerned was to be used in our own Toby shows.

The tent doors were tied open, and members of the audience brought their own chairs or sat on the grass in front of the tent.

It was taken for granted that I write the plays. Something that was questioned only once. One of the gang, a girl my own age, always the heroine, felt it was time she wrote the play and I could be the heroine. I was willing, but as I pointed out to her, it was quite impossible for me to replace her as heroine because she had naturally curly hair, while mine was straight.

She understood immediately and the play went on. It usually required a great deal of preparation. I even typed out programs on my mother’s old Underwood.

The plays themselves were pretty weak. I don’t remember much about them except there was usually an Irish maid named Bridget and a father figure who was just taking off for the billiard parlor before the &uot;crime&uot; took place. As father, he wore a fake mustache so he could come back on as the butler, usually the criminal.

We sold popcorn, which we had popped ourselves between acts, for three cents a sack (extremely small sacks). I rarely acted in the plays unless another character was urgently needed. So I stood guard over the popcorn during the play lest hunger should triumph over appreciation on the part of some member of the audience.

I had a friend who once asked me if I didn’t feel that our days at the University were the happiest in our life. I answered him that I thought the present days were the happiest in my life.

It’s the same answer I’d give now and I think it’s a truthful answer. Childhood is never as golden or as carefree as adults remember it. Still I’m aware now and then of some nostalgia for the long ago. As a certain cartoonist once illustrated, though, before my &uot;Make-me-a-child-again-just-for-today-request&uot; were granted, I’d want it understood that I would pick the day.

Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursdays.