Little House on the Prairie Redux

I got a Facebook message from my old middle school friend Katie the other day. “You saw they’re doing a Little House on the Prairie remake, right?”

I had not seen. But it made sense that the news came from Katie, who, like me, spent most of 5th and 6th grade dressed in prairie clothes, making corn husk dolls, and writing letters to the cast of THE BEST TV SHOW EVER to see if maybe they were looking to hire some extras for the schoolhouse scenes who could bring their own costumes to the set.

I mean, LHOP was my jam. I had a self-study PhD in long winters, sod houses, and Happy Golden Years (the worst book of the series.) I knew everything about both real characters and the ones on the television show, and had the notebook with dividers to prove it.

If my older brother wanted to make me mad, which was pretty much his job description when we were 10 and 13 respectively, he had only to say, “Oh, is Bucky on tonight?” Bucky was Melissa Gilbert, aka Halfpint, aka Laura Ingalls on the show, and she had a slight overbite, so he called her Bucktooth, then nicknamed her Bucky. It made me cry, which made him laugh. The circle of (sibling) life.

I liked Gilbert, but it was the other Melissa – Melissa Sue Anderson, whom I called “Missy” because I was a dues-paying member of the Missy Fan Club and we were tight like that – who I wanted to be. That long blond hair, just like mine! That placid demeanor – just not like mine but whatever! And most of all – the noble way she navigated the Season 4-and-beyond blindness. I used to bump around in my basement wearing one of the many “old fashioned” dresses my mom kindly sewed for me, seeing what it felt like to be Missy the Actress being Mary the TV character based on Mary the Book Character. Not so much Method Acting but Messy Acting.

One of the more absurd moments in my life happened thanks to LHOP. I got sick while sitting in my fifth grade classroom – fever, headache, who knows what – and got sent home. My parents both worked but I assured Mom from the phone in the nurse’s office I’d be fine until they got home, I was just going to lie down anyway. I was probably very excited to have the house to myself for a change – it almost never happened in my family of five and at age 11, I had a vivid imagination that needed a lot of space to be fully expressed. Then I walked home because it was the ‘70s and we didn’t roll with a lot of fancy stuff like “rides.”

Once I got inside, I did what you do when you’re so sick that you’re sent home from school with a fever –changed into my finest LHOP tribute wear, including a bonnet, bloomers, and apron. But I didn’t really feel well enough to play. Actually, I didn’t feel well at all. Actually, I thought I was maybe going to faint or throw up or some combination of the two. Actually, I almost passed out onto a couch and then got scared that something was really wrong with me.

I at least had the good sense to call someone for help, someone nearby in my close-knit neighborhood. I crawled to the yellow wall phone in the kitchen and dialed my next door neighbors, the Bruce family, praying Mrs. Bruce would answer.

Uh oh. It was Mr. Bruce, who taught AP History at the high school I would eventually attend. I like to think that when he burst through the back door to bring me orange juice and baby aspirin, he felt a historian’s appreciation of the sight of his next door neighbor kid blacked out on a couch, dressed for a time period before penicillin. I mean, if he’d been a geometry teacher or something, it might have been awkward.

(Side note: this episode gave Mr. Bruce, a sarcastic and funny man, full license to tease me for the rest of my life. Like when he was the proctor for my SAT test in 11th grade and approached my desk, looked over the bubbled-in answer sheet, and let loose a snort of derisive laughter before walking away, shaking his head. I couldn’t even blame him.)

As for whether I’ll watch the new show, not bloody likely. Without Michael Landon, can it really be an accurate depiction of 19th century life?

Then again, I assume they’ll need adult extras for the scenes set in the Little Town on the Prairie. Maybe I’ll ping the director to let him know that Katie and I are available.

Just as soon as I confirm availability of my seamstress and medic.

C’mon, you know you laughed every week when Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush – that’s right, they were twins according to my careful handwritten notes – bit it on the downhill run.

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Speaking of my mom – I had a piece published on the wonderful travel writing website WorldHum this week, about a road trip that she and I, along with my sister and my aunt Noonie, took to a famed Spiritualist Assembly in western New York last summer. Check it out!