My Response to Matthew’s Blog Dig, Dig,
Dig
I was fascinated with Matthew’s memory of the Fritz story, Fritz and the dinosaur bone. He was very kind to imply my sound effects and jesters were so effective. As I remember the incident, I resorted to sound effects, a stuffed toy dog and jester to keep your interest. Isn’t it remarkable that you remember the embellishments better that the story.
Many times Bryce and Lynea begged me to tell their families Fritz stories. They were sure the kids would love them like they did as little kids. I tried several times and your interests always wonderd off. In desperation I resorted to a more graphic presentation. What I later came to realize is that you grandkids had no connection with old Fritz, except the few pictures we had and what your parents told you. I doubt Old Fritz gained much reality until you got Max and Naughtiea. I was never sure you separated Old Fritz from Fritzie even though they were about 10 years apart and had very different personalities.
Fritz stories were part of the Fifield family folklore. They combined a few experiences with a lot of fantasy. Like most legions they grew, were adapted and became more spectacular over time. Let me give you a bit of history.
The Fritz stories started out in the early 1960s
As Tony Stories. They evolved into Fritz Stories in the 1970s after we moved to
Tony was a large, white shaggy haired dog. (Looked like a sled dog) that Grandpa Allred had picked up from somewhere. He lived with Grandma and Grandpa Allred out at
Tony liked to chase and bark at the wheels of the milk truck. Thus, one of the first stories was about the consequences of this naughty behavior resulting in his tail getting ran over. The kids would run around the house holding there bottoms yakking like a dog whose tail was broken. You can imagine where it went from there.
We had a story about Tony and the railroad track, Tony and the flipper, Tony and the sheep, Tony and the fire (this was a favorite and told thousands of times), Tony and the cows, and Tony and the polar bear. (Another favorite because we added dilects of difference char actors, Mexican, Englishman, Southern Blacks, German and a few others that were less successful). We had some moral stories about Tony’s naughty friends Skeeter and Ralph in which Tony’s wisdom and warning went unheeded and they had horrible consequences. Tony and the cat protectors.
One of the best stories was the dinosaur bone. This story transferred very well to
The story wasn’t much but we had some fabulous embellishments. Matthew remembered the digging embellishments we had a stuffed dog we used to act out the digging episode. They didn’t need to visualize Old Fritz they had a tangible dog to use and it just got better and better. We moved his front paws to dig and his back legs to move the dirt. We blew on his paws adding sound effects, frustration and energy. Matthew and Lisa got caught up in the digging. They repeated it over and over again with their hands and with the stuffed dog. It went on all evening. I’m not sure they ever heard the ending of the story. I don’t think it mattered it was the animations and sound effects that carried the memory.
This is a long blog with a lot of information of limited interest to many of you. Yet I believe Bryce, Terry and Lynea’s minds will be stimulated by what I hope are some good memories. I would like to hear some of their memories about the stories.
Thanks Matthew it was fun retrieving these memories. Now you know the rest of the story.