Tricky Dick slammed his fist
down on his oval desk;
then, with a frown yelled,
“ The war in Viet Nam be damned!”
He thought John Dean was to blame
for signs outside that ridiculed his name;
but it was the ghost of Judy Mae Hess,
from 20 years ago;
who died an Indian Princess
on a TV puppet show
who brought the protest.
. . . .
Once upon a childhood long ago,
along with millions of other little boys
I was in love with an Indian Princess
on a TV puppet show.
The princess’ name was Summerfall Winterspring.
When she looked through the TV screen
her voice talked about being good and true
as if she was talking just to you.
Then one fall day, in 1953,
the Indian Princess Summerfall Winterspring,
Buffalo Bob, a character on the show explained,
had gone to the “Happy Hunting Ground.”
Fantasy came tumbling down.
Mothers in their kitchens fixing dinners
saw little children pointing fingers at TV sets,
asking with angry, crying faces,
“Who behind the screen made the decisions?
Answer-less parents called TV stations.
That night a million little boys cried to dreams.
. . . .
Some of us, years later in the library stacks;
found her again in old magazines.
The Indian Princess from the TV set,
the one that took my heart with all the rest
at last had a name like everyone else.
Her real name was Judy Mae Hess.
The article said, “She had been fired.”
Her departure was finally explained.
She went on to star in the movie
Jailhouse Rock with Elvis Presley.
Her career was having great success
under her real name Judy Mae Hess.
But her real name was lost to little fans
who were forgotten in the TV lands.
In the middle of her success, Judy Mae Hess,
love of my life and everyone else;
died in a car crash in Rock River, Wyoming.
The obituary failed to mention her absence
going unexplained from a puppet show in 1953,
was the most romantic event of the Twentieth Century.
But, back then who could have predicted or known
the absence of a princess on a puppet show
would begin in the minds of children
a skeptical explosion ?
. . . .
Two decades had passed and the puppets
Bluster and Flub-a-dub were left in closets.
Judy Mae Hess was in a mausoleum.
Tricky Dick was fighting the war in Viet Nam
and trying to deal with war protestors at home.
He wondered from where the angry young men came.
Dick thought it was John Dean he had to blame.
He looked out and over the Rose Garden Gate
at the signs and pickets that ridiculed his name
and wondered again from where they came.
Alas, he didn’t see the ghost of Judy Mae Hess
who died in a puppet show an Indian Princess.
Copyright © 2009 Charles N. Guthrie
Charles N. Guthrie lives and writes in Southern California.
In November 1953, Judy Tyler, (maiden name, Judy Mae Hess) was fired from the “Howdy Doody Show,” a TV puppet show. She played the role of an Indian Princess called Summerfall Winterspring. When she was taken off the show an uproar came from her young audience and their parents. Her disappearance from the show was never explained to millions of young viewers. On July 4, 1957, Judy Tyler, and her husband Gregory Lafayette, were killed in an automobile accident in Rock River, Wyoming. At the time of the publication of this poem the memory of Judy Mae Hess haunts a romantic generation of men in their mid 60s. If you will the first TV children. The long term effect of her unexplained removal from the “Howdy Doody Show,” and the skepticism and broken hearts it produced influenced American politics and history. My apologies for having some fun with President Nixon’s name. He is my favorite president. History will treat Nixon as one of our greatest presidents who put country over everything. The Hamletian issues he faced and how he resolved them will eventually make him more popular in history than his own time.
