by Kent Ballard
Author’s note: Every word of this is true.
One of the drawbacks to rural life is the lack of big name entertainment. When I was seven years old, in 1960, I realized it was pretty unlikely that Soupy Sales or Steve Allen would ever make a public appearance in a corn field near me. Live entertainment usually consisted of playing baseball with my dog or riding Old Mary, our Holstein, around in the barn lot.
One day while watching the afternoon cartoons on our ancient Philco, I was astonished when the host announced that he was going to make a public appearance at a new furniture store opening in the little town near our farm. There would be sing-alongs, magic tricks, and a free treat for every boy and girl in attendance.
The host was a nice man named Happy Harry, and he was immensely popular with all of the local children. He reported for duty every afternoon in a crisp white sailor’s suit and cap, played passable guitar, and best of all, ran lots of cartoons. He opened his show with a warm smile and a cheerful song, and he closed it with the admonition for all of us “good little sailors” to mind our moms and dads and say our prayers at night.
Being a farm kid, I had never seen a real celebrity before, and this would be my first. I knew Happy Harry was a star because I had seen him on TV. That was what I kept telling my mother as she loaded me into our ’58 Ford on the big day. I was going to see my hero. And get a prize!
He was to appear at noon. We got there twenty minutes early and found about a hundred other kids and their mothers packed tightly around a rickety-looking platform. My Mom wanted to make sure I had a good view so she started trying to cram me forward. She succeeded only in wedging me in between other mothers who were trying to cram their kids ahead. It was a hot day and they smelled funny.
Noon came. Noon went. No Happy Harry.
By 12:30, the crowd was making its displeasure pretty vocal. The store manager made a few lame excuses, reassured everybody that there would be prizes and fun galore, then hastily departed the stage.
A little after 1:00, the crowd was soaked in sweat and openly hostile when Happy Harry lurched onto the platform. He had about three days’ growth of beard. His sailor suit—so spotless and creased on TV—was rumpled and stained. His hair was sticking out at odd angles from under a greasy swabbie’s cap planted far back on his head, and he was drunker than any human being I would see for the next fifteen years.
He mumbled something about being late, swayed to and fro silently for a moment, then launched into a rambling and largely unintelligible story about Popeye, who he referred to as his “ol’ drinkin’ buddy.” He paused in mid-sentence a couple of times to leer wickedly at some of the younger mothers and mutter under his breath.
Bear in mind that this was a very conservative rural community, and that this took place in 1960. Some of the mothers, shocked, dragged their protesting children away and swore to write Harry’s sponsors. Others marched into the store for a confrontation with the manager. But most of us, parents and children alike, stood in open-mouthed amazement as Happy Harry picked up his guitar and invented a new set of lyrics to his theme song, which he howled loudly while twisting and gyrating like Elvis.
Happy Harry then picked up a box of magic tricks, stared at it curiously for a moment, and sat it back down without a word. He was looking pretty bad by then; pale, sweating profusely, and unable to focus his eyes.
As kids often do when they find someone in a predicament, we turned utterly vicious and began taunting him and booing. My strongest memory of the day is of an older kid yelling, “Hey, Harry! What’s your REAL name? Tell us your REAL name, Harry!”
Happy Harry’s face turned purple with fury and his bloodshot eyes actually frightened me. “Happy Harry IS my real name!” He bellowed maniacally, “My first name’s ‘Happy’ and my last name’s ‘Harry’!” This was received with catcalls and squeals of derisive laughter. I have no idea why this is so vivid in my memory after fifty-four years. I guess it never occurred to me that Happy Harry may have, in fact, had another name. I was to learn much that day.
He attempted to regain control by slurring, “Hey kids, who wants a prize?” This quieted us for a moment until he held up a small bag of balloons. Obviously, he had balloons enough for only a fraction of the children present. There was a rush for the stage and the little kids in front were being mashed in the process. Happy Harry panicked and threw the balloons towards the rear of the crowd, a grave tactical error. The crush of children tried to reverse direction instantly and there was a stampede. Many children—including yours truly—were knocked down and trampled. While kids were crying and mothers were screaming, Happy Harry, wild-eyed and literally drooling, picked up a thick stack of publicity photos and threw them at everybody, cursing humanity in general and children in particular as he did so. The hapless store manager and a couple of burly employees rushed up onto the stage and grappled with Harry, giving him the bum’s rush down the steps and into the back door of the new store.
To the best of my knowledge, there were no lawsuits filed. (This was 1960, remember.) Happy Harry’s show remarkably continued for another year or so, then he was replaced by another, less memorable host. The local gossips in our community kept the telephone lines busy with lurid details about the grand opening, and the new store eventually went bankrupt.
For some time afterward, I was a major celebrity among my friends in the second grade who didn’t go to the store opening. They listened with rapt attention over and over as I described the “riot,” and within two weeks the story contained squad cars full of state troopers who, in desperation, turned police dogs and fire hoses onto the mob in order to quell the disturbance while Happy Harry fired a pistol wildly into the air…
Television has changed since those days, and not all for the better. Live TV is almost unheard of, and children’s shows rarely acknowledge the delight a child enjoys when watching an adult caught making outrageous mistakes. Kids do that all the time. Seeing grownups in a less than perfect light often has a reassuring effect. Perhaps, the kid will think, maybe I’m not so bad after all…
And that might be the best lesson we could teach them.
Looking back, that was one of the happiest afternoons of my life, even if I didn’t get a balloon. If I could meet Happy Harry now, I’d shake his hand and thank him.
But I damn sure wouldn’t by him a drink.
Wow that reminds me of the time… actually that reminds me of nothing I’ve ever experienced. I’m both a bit thankful and jealous that has never happened to me. In this day we get to see our “heroes” at fairly well managed conventions where they’re on something akin to their best behavior. Some are very personable and others look like they’re going through the motions, but I’ve never encountered a Happy Harry yet. Maybe folks like Happy Harry are the reason so many of the kids stars are in animal suits, so that if the main star is a drunkard then anyone can get in a like suit and be sober for the kids?
It’s a scary thing meeting someone that you like that’s famous. When I took my kids to see William Shatner I was scared shitless that he’d end up being a prick, others had told me he was, but he and my youngest son talked and we all took our picture and then they said goodbye. I didn’t exchange a word with him but left feeling like I had the best experiance of my life with a man I never even spoke with.
Cool story, but you failed… to disappoint.
I’ve wondered if the management of that little TV station did not pay its employees with free liquor. That, or if it was such a hellish job that it drove people to drink. Around twenty years later their afternoon cartoon show hostess passed out drunk on live TV. I talked to children at the time who witnessed that happen. When this woman passed out the cameraman followed her sliding down the side of the set and laying in the floor. He apparently then locked the swivels on his camera, left it turned on, and walked away. She laid there silently on live television for several minutes before someone went to commercials and stayed with them for the remaining eight or ten minutes of the show.
The kids were afraid the nice lady had been sick, or maybe needed to take her nap at that time. I told their mothers and fathers what I’d seen twenty years earlier. Nobody seemed too surprised. This TV station was the local equivalent to “Kentucky Fried Movie” or “The Groove Tube” for decades. (Check YouTube for films from each.) How they ever kept their FCC license is beyond me. I had the impression the station never had more than eight or ten employees at any given time. Live commercials were often done throughout the day by their evening news readers. Another evening newsman read flying saucer reports almost nightly and went on to write a bestseller about them. I should watch them again after all these years. They might not have changed all that much.
“And that might be the best lesson we can teach them,” I think this line is a perfect line to follow the preceding paragraph and has much truth in it.
I enjoyed your story about the pathetic, Happy Harry, and the kids reaction to his failure to live up to their expectations of their hero. A slice of life for those kids and a lesson in the ways of the world. They certainly learned something that day.
Reminded me when my mom had taken a friend and myself, in the mid-fifties, to a TV show called Rootie Kazootie. All we cared about were the free bottles of Coca Cola they gave away. Nice piece of memoir, Kent.
Thanks for your kind reply, Dennis. I think you got the better deal going to see Rootie. Any child can tell you a Coke in the hand beats a than a balloon in the air.
I hope I just saw Harry on a bad day. I still like to think he had a better life. But we who were present that day did experience a certain loss of innocence. All a part of growing up, I suppose, but so few events are remarkable enough to be remembered for life. At the end of the day, a tiny serving of maturity and understanding beat a balloon or a cold Coke as gifts.
Kent, if you’re not writing fiction you could. I love stories about ordinary things that suddenly become twisted and horrific. Reminds me of Stephen King and Ray Bradbury. Here what strikes me is the sadness of how readily we turn on our “heroes”: We build them up and then revel when they fall (“As kids often do when they find someone in a predicament, we turned utterly vicious and began taunting him and booing.”). Great details, well written. Keep up the good work!
Yes, Sherrie, every lesson in life comes with a dark side and often that side is what we learn about ourselves. In their futures, any seven year old will eventually bump into someone who idolizes them. And if they allow that to happen, if they come to accept being an idol, they’ve just set the springs of their own later trap. The only way to avoid the jaws of that trap is to hold tightly to your own humanity–including your failures–and step down off that marble pedestal you’ve been placed on as quickly as possible.
Sadly, we who eventually grew up all learned this the hard way. It feels so great to be someone’s idol, so empowering. But it always leads to being torn down and mocked. Anyone who takes themselves too seriously is asking for this fate. The real pity is that so many never learn this.