A Three-Year, Three-Hour Tour

It was just supposed to be a three-hour tour.  Yet Ginger, the movie star, brought along enough evening gowns to stock the racks of a Saks Fifth Avenue.  The Howells - Thurston and Lovey – also brought so much stuff that it should have sunk the Minnow before she even left port!  The comedy, Gilligan’s Island, premiered in 1964 and had a 3-year run in prime time and then an incredible 40+ year stint of intermittent reruns. 

As a kid I can remember singing along with the theme song to the show.  That was then.  Now I am fully aware that I can’t carry a tune in a bucket without spilling it.  I’ve never been one to sing in the shower because you never know who might be lurking and listening near the door.  But when I’m alone in the car, I sing my little heart out.  During that private time I’m telling Barbra Streisand to eat her heart out as I belt out my own rendition of The Gilligan’s Island theme song:

“Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale * A tale of a fateful trip * That started from this tropic port * Aboard this tiny ship. * The mate was a mighty sailing man * The skipper brave and sure * Five passengers set sail that day * For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

The weather started getting rough * The tiny ship was tossed * If not for the courage of the fearless crew * The Minnow would be lost * the Minnow would be lost * The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle * With Gilligan * the Skipper too * the millionaire and his wife * the movie star * The Professor and Mary Ann * Here on Gilligan’s Isle ”

As a kid in the 60’s this was one of my favorite shows.  I loved each and every one of those seven eccentric characters but if I had to pick a favorite, then it would be the Professor.  When he wasn’t chasing butterflies and identifying flora and fauna, he was building contraptions using only the materials at hand – things like parts from the boat, coconuts, and bamboo.  Indeed, the Professor was the original MacGyver, minus the pocket knife.

The Professor once built a pedal-operated power saw using Mrs. Howell’s diamond necklace as a blade. He also made a stethoscope out of bamboo, a bamboo foot-pedal-powered car, a pedal-powered dentist’s drill, and even rigged up a lie detector machine using the ship’s horn, radio batteries, and some of that handy-dandy bamboo.  The only thing the poor guy couldn’t figure out how to do was fix that hole in USS Minnow.

Years later I ended up marrying my very own Professor/MacGyver kind of guy.  The Monty-Man once found an aluminum boat on the side of the road with a hole in it.  Unlike the Professor, my guy patched that hole, called it a yacht, took me out on the lake on a moon-less night and introduced me to a little sport called frog-giggin’.  That’s how a country boy romances a city girl.

My Monty-Man can make some of the most incredible things with junked parts, a welder, some solder, and country-boy ingenuity.  When I saw what he made using a train rail, a bulldozer cylinder, a Snapper lawnmower engine, and a road scrape blade, well folks, I knew I had found my very own Professor!
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I’ve also been reminiscing, pondering, and musing on these topics:

One my early dates with the hubby
My first lesson on biscuit making

The lost art of letter writing
Cups for hot mochas.Say Good Night Gracie.
My first visit to the library with my Mama
Driving Mama over the Edge
It’s a Little Off the Wall
Crushing on The Professor
The Avocado Tree
From Baby Food Jars to Peanut Butter Jars
Christmas Memories
Theory of Pancake Relativity
The Pajama Party