I shouldn’t have laughed until I knew that he was OK, and reflecting on it now, I’m just glad that we didn’t seriously harm an assistant director or damage a porta-potty.
The year was 1995, and I was the director of Tate’s Day Camp. At the time we had two assistant directors (Andy Lamon and Greg Martin) that were amazingly talented and creative. Greg had created an original character named Tidy Bowl Blue. Tidy Bowl was a magic genie that had big blue hair, a blue face with swim goggles covering his eyes, and he wore a utility belt consisting of multiple rolls of toilet paper. And his magic scepter was of course…a commode plunger.
Back in the day, camp was much smaller and a little more primitive so we used porta-potties in some of our more secluded areas. Greg, Andy, and I were setting up for a campout program on a Friday afternoon when we came up with a great idea. Let’s move one of the porta-potties down to the stage, fill it with blue smoke bombs, and summon Tidy Bowl Blue to come forth to kick off the campout program.
Great idea…right? We thought so too. So, we got the old blue Ford pickup truck, affectionately known as Ole Blue, backed it up to one of the porta-potties, and the three of us heaved the porta-potty up and into the back of the truck. Now – if you ever do this, it’s important to keep the porta potty in a true vertical position at all times.
This is where 19 years later, we’re a little fuzzy on who played exactly what role as the story unfolds, but I think we’re in agreement that Greg was driving. Andy and I were in the back of the truck holding the porta-potty in the vertical position. Greg slowly pulled away…and that’s when it happened!
The cab of the truck easily went under the limb of that big tree; however, the porta-potty in the upright position DID NOT! As the porta-potty snagged on that limb, I remember seeing it tip out of the back of the truck with Andy holding on for dear life. Although it was like slow motion in my mind, it was actually only a split second and the porta-potty, Andy, and I were all out on the ground. And, it’s safe to say that the porta-potty was NOT in a vertical upright position.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever studied a porta-potty, but there’s usually a vent chimney in the top of it. Greg had stopped the truck and joined us, and as the three of us stood there in silence looking at the toppled horizontal porta-potty, Andy noticed that the “blue goo” was now running out the vent chimney.
Quickly, we sprang into action, picked up the porta-potty, and righted it back to its vertical position. And then the comment was made, “Hey. When was the last time you think this thing was serviced?” Enough said about that…no answer was needed.
We got the porta-potty to the stage, and later that night the campers took their seats and watched in delight as blue smoke came from the porta-potty, and we summoned the Great Tidy Bowl Blue. Although I don’t remember the specific script of that skit, Andy and I were two bubble gum detectives that enlisted the help of Tidy Bowl Blue to join us on an investigation and use his magical powers to help us solve a mystery. Success…and memories forever!