Response to Dig Dig Dig

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 Logan and got Old Fritz. Bryce, Terry and Lynea were each very active in adapting them to fit Old Fritz and we all let fantasy run wild. That made them even more personable and memorable. Let’s start with Tony…

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 Fort Hall, Idaho. Tony loved kids and would let them ride him, pull his ears and would knock them over with his enthuastic tail wagging. Grandpa Allred hitched him to a sled and, after we could catch him, we would harness him to the sled for rides. Tony was the first to greet us when ever we visited Grandma and Grandpa and he stayed with the kids constantly. One spring when Grandpa sheared the sheep he decided to shear the long hair off Tony as well. Tony was mortified and crawled under the house. He refused to come out so, the kids crawled in to comfort him on several of the next visits. I started telling the kids stories about Tony bringing together things that happened at Fort Hall with Tony’s remarkable ability to talk, plan adventures and have wonderful as well as disasterious experience. Tony stories were usually told with the kids sitting on my lap as we rocked in the big green chair. As the stories unfolded their eyes would roll around in their heads, as they visualize Tony in his various situations. They would smile and giggle and hug themselves in anticipation. When one story ended it was “again Daddy or tell us this one or that one. When Tony stories were bedtime stories, multiple stories were a way to keep from going to sleep. Tony stories were also part of family loves or to settle down after a romp. It was a challenge to be repetitious without changing the story too much. Whenever I made major changes the kids were very quick to correct me. I liked to get hung up on a reparative sound like the wind, the clock striking or dig, dig, dig. They would get exasperated and say “go on Daddy”. I would sometimes go to sleep or act like I was a sleep. They would slap my cheeks (Lynea liked to do that) and tell me to go on.

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 Logan and from Tony to Old Fritz. Grandpa and Fritz were out walking in the hills one afternoon when Fritz came up a bone partly sticking out of the ground. He tried to pull it up and when that didn’t work he started to dig it out. After a noble effort Old Fritz came to Grandpa for help. We ran home got Bryce and Terry and with shovels we all started digging away. The deeper the excavation the bigger the bone became and we knew we had found a treasure, a dinosaur bone. It was a bone large enough to feed Old Fritz for a whole year. We all dug tell we were exhausted. Fritz worked the hardest. He dug with his front paws kicking the dirt out between his hind legs. When it piled up too much behind him he would kick it back with his hind legs. He dug so fast his paws became hot so he had to stop and blow on them. We worked all afternoon until it got dark. We knew we had found a treasure so we returned home to arrange for a bulldozer, and backhoe to go out the first thing the next morning. Well---during the night the wind came up it blew and blew…. (This was a very elongated part, making the wind sounds. It went on and on). Finally morning came and we returned with the heavy equipment. But the wind had recovered the bone. We looked and looked for days and weeks but could never find the bone again. From that time on, every time Old Fritz went to the hills or out in the fields he kept his nose to the ground trying to find the smell of the dinosaur bone. It went on the rest of his life and we never did find that bone again.

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.