The Glow Worm Show

For the first six years of my life, I was an only child. Despite having the full and complete attention of my parents, the night-time ritual of books at bedtime was never embraced by either of them. In their defense, the VCR hadn’t been invented yet and it was the Golden Age of television. There were only about five channels but they offered all of the timeless icons like the Six Million Dollar Man, Charlie’s Angels, and the vast variety of well, variety shows.

During those six years, I relentlessly petitioned my parents for a sibling. I wanted someone to hang out and grow up with. (I was also interested in having an innocent-looking accomplice to do my bidding for me, no questions asked). They eventually acquiesced to my demands, apparently. My new baby sister arrived one summer. She was cute I will admit, but I was also impatient for my new henchman to get up to speed. We had things to do.

Even though my parents never read books to me, they very much encouraged me to read out loud to them. Birthday and holiday gifts would always include a book or two. By the time my sister arrived, we had amassed an impressive collection of fairy tales, animal stories, comics, and encyclopedias (the pre-Google of our age). I decided I would read to the newcomer now.

My initial Buyer's-remorse over the crying-sleeping-eating entity that sucked up all the parental energy quickly subsided. She loved listening to me tell stories and would smile and laugh at my sound effects. She seemed to be in awe of how I made sense out of the pictures. Being an older sister was, indeed, an excellent vocation and I took my responsibilities seriously.

Books at bedtime became OUR ritual. I would read to her every night. We went through each adorable Little Golden Book, segued into the I Can Read series, and continued with the other books on our shelves. The kid soaked it all up. She loved it.

I would take my little sister to the library every now and then, where I could further impress her with my worldly, older-kid privileges. I had a *library card*.

“Sure kid, pick out any book you like, it’s on me.”

There were other ways I kept the big sister hero-worship going. The most spectacular, I will admit, was the effort I put into her birthday parties.

Kim’s birthday was in the summer. With no planned activities to occupy our break from academia, my friends and I used her kiddie party as a way to hone our love for the theater. We created a stage out of a huge cardboard box covered in contact paper. We made our own puppets out of old toilet paper rolls and paper mâché. Our script was based on a book series (Little Bear) and we threw in all kinds of dramatic extras like sound effects using our then-high-tech tape recorder.

In addition to our puppet show, I put together scavenger hunts, made pinatas, and added some games of chance to the obligatory musical chairs and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. All the children in the neighborhood wanted in on the big birthday gala. It was quite the extravaganza, if I do say so myself.

Being a young child, Kim wanted more of this party lifestyle. She didn’t understand annual timelines or why she had to wait a whole year for another celebration. I had created a party monster. With much desperation, I searched for ways to placate her demand for high-end entertainment. I had the little one idolizing me, I needed to hold on to the magic.

Thankfully, the cultural bastion of 1970’s television arts was there to guide me- the celebrity variety show hour.

During this era, every great celebrity of note had a variety show: Sonny and Cher, The Captain and Tennille, Tony Orlando and Dawn, the Brady Bunch, Donny and Marie, Engelbert Humperdinck, these are just some of the iconic names that used to sing, dance and engage in darling, one-liner comedy sketches. Looking back, I’m in awe of the industry’s ability to rotate the few remaining celebrities who didn’t, yet, have a show of their own, to appear as guest stars. (Seriously, everyone was doing it- the Jacksons, Flip Wilson, the Hudson Brothers, Dick Van Dyke, Julie Andrews, Gladys Knight and the Pips, so many others.)

The variety show gave viewers everything worth watching in a one-hour window. During that hour, the viewer was able to see comedy sketches, cheesy one-liners, dancing celebrities, elaborate florescent costumes, and songs sung by the hit-makers of the day. Then they could watch another hour of the same hosted by a different celebrity.

I decided to weave a version of this successful television formula into our sisterly book hour.

Several nights a week, instead of just reading a story, I presented the Glow Worm Show from the stage of our bunk beds. There was an assortment of miniature action-figure-like toys that made up the ensemble headed up by Mr. Glow Worm, a witty jokester who would banter with the line-up of zany guests. I used sewing thread to dangle the small toys like marionettes from my bunk above. They would sing and dance in front of her very eyes! It was pretty innovative for my limited special-effects repertoire.

The star and emcee of the show was a glow-in-the-dark finger puppet that had come with a child-marketed lip balm. Glow-in-the-dark was having its glory moment at the time and I was able to use the burgeoning technology to bring serious visual appeal to my production.

The show would conclude with Glow Worm telling a story for the evening. The Glow Worm tales were occasionally traditional fables, modified to express a moral I had an interest in trying to get across (like the importance of putting your sister’s hair accessories back in the right drawer). Usually, however, they were stories I'd saved and kept on hand for my celeb to tell. Sometimes, if the story elements allowed, I used the action figure ‘guest stars’ act it out.

My sister was delighted with my creative project.

One night, I didn’t have anything prepared for my evening entertainment ‘hour’ (it was usually just 20 minutes at best). I was going to postpone it for the next day but Kim’s reaction was sadness and disappointment. She wanted to see her Glow Worm show that night, so I tried to throw something together.

After a bunch of corny knock-knock jokes and a little song that I probably plagiarized from Donnie and Marie, Glow Worm began his story for the night.

I had a vague premise I thought I could use and I made more up as I went along. I think it ignited my love for creating stories because my characters seemed to come to life as the story went on. I, too, wanted to see what would develop and what would happen to them.

The first time I told it, it was probably a little shorter and the flow was messier. But my sister loved the story. She would request it time and time again.

The Glow Worm Show

Some creatures in the forest come into the world from a hatched egg. Some animals, like birds, are greeted by bird parents that help them out for a while after they’re born. The parent birds take care of them, feed them, and teach them how to navigate their lives when they leave the nest.

But our little creature was another kind of egg baby. When he peered out of his cracked shell, all he found was a dark forest with no one else around. He was expected to figure it all out on his own, it seemed.

The little animal explored his surroundings hoping to find others like him. As he got to know the lay of the land, he encountered many other species. These other animals looked and acted differently and our friend was too shy to ask them for help or even to just play with him.

Eventually, he accepted that no other creatures like himself lived nearby. On his own, he spent his days wandering around, smelling the flowers, rolling around in the mud, and observing what the other animals did. There were many times when he would have liked to have had a friend to play with or share a meal with but he didn’t think the other animals would want to be with someone who was different.

As he was watching butterflies in the forest, he learned that a sweet and tasty nectar could be obtained from a particular plant. One of the pretty insects noted his interest.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“I don’t think I have a name,” he answered.

“Harry,” they said. “From now on your name is Harry.”

And that’s how simple it was.

One warm day he was sitting by a puddle near a pond. Harry saw a small school of fish swimming in the clear water. It looked like they were having fun and he decided he wanted to learn how to swim too.

He watched how the animals moved underwater and tried to replicate the moves with his tail because he had no fins. He learned how to hold his breath because he had no gills. After practicing in the shallow puddle for a long time, he decided to try swimming in the pond.

He jumped in. It wasn’t easy at first but he quickly got the hang of it and enjoyed splashing around and moving through the water. Soon, the school of fish he had observed before came over.

“We saw what you did and thought it was very impressive!” they said.

“What do you mean?” asked Harry. “I just did what you do all the time.”

“But you’re not a fish,” they said. “You had to learn how to swim and now you can do what we do even though you don’t have fins or gills. Would you like to be our friend?”

Harry was so happy!

He finally had a group of friends he could play with. He would meet them every day and they would swim together.

Harry still wanted to meet others who were the same species of animal that he was. He thought it would be good to have friends that looked like him and had the same things in common. But he never met any.

One day, he was lying in the grass with his eyes closed listening to songs the nearby birds were singing. He enjoyed the music very much. When a bird came close, he asked it how it made such beautiful songs with just his throat.

The bird was confused. It was natural for a bird to sing. He had never thought about it before; he just did it. He decided to try and help Harry learn to sing as well.

It wasn’t easy. Harry had to learn how to constrict his throat muscles. He also took some breathing lessons. Soon, Harry was singing duets with the bird. Although the bird’s talent was better, Harry wasn’t half bad himself and he made up for it with his enthusiasm.

“Wow,” said the bird. “You are so talented!”

“What do you mean?” asked Harry. “All I did was sing. You do it all the time.”

“But I’m a bird. It’s easy for us. You learned how to do it and that’s far more impressive. I could use a smart friend. Will you be my friend?”

Harry was so happy! Of course, he wanted to be the bird’s friend.

After swimming with his fish friends, Harry and his bird friend would jam together while the other animals in the forest would dance, especially the fireflies. They loved to move around to the tunes the unusual pair came up with and would light up the evening sky.

One day, while practicing for their semi-weekly performance in the forest, Harry went on a short break and met up with the fireflies. He told them how much he admired the light show they put on.

“How do you do it?” he asked.

“We just light up when we are happy,” they told him.

“That’s a beautiful talent to have,” he said.

The fireflies looked at each other in confusion. Harry was confused by their confusion.

“You do the same thing,” they told him.

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do,” they pointed out. “Whenever you are happy you light up, just like us. In fact, you stay lit up, we just blink. We think your bioluminescence [that’s what it’s called, remember that for science class] is more beautiful.”

Harry had never thought about it. For so long, he had been rather sad because he didn’t have any friends. Getting to know the others in the forest had turned on this interesting trait. He’d been so busy enjoying his companions he hadn’t even noticed that his skin had such a unique quality!

The next night was a show night for Harry and the bird. While Harry and his friends were entertaining the other animals in the forest, a gang of worms arrived at the dance party. They were dirty and seemed unfriendly. They hung around the area scowling and didn’t even dance once.

When Harry went on one of his breaks, they approached him.

“What’s your problem?” they asked somewhat angrily.

Harry didn’t know what to say.

“You’re not a bird,” they said. “Why are you acting like one?”

“I enjoy singing,” Harry told them. “It makes me happy to see everyone dance to our songs. I love entertaining everyone in the forest.”

The worms were displeased with that answer.

“But you’re one of us. You’re not supposed to sing. You’re supposed to crawl around on the ground and eat garbage.”

Harry got a closer look at the worms. They did look a lot like Harry!

Their appearance was similar. They moved the same. Harry realized he’d been a worm all along. But instead of being happy to finally meet others of his kind, he was mostly sad.

He had nothing in common with these lazy creatures. They didn’t seem interested in swimming, or drinking nectar, or singing songs. They were just surly and unpleasant.

“Come with us,” they told him. “We’re going back to the compost pile.”

Harry didn’t want to go. A compost pile didn’t seem like any fun.

“I’m going to stay here, with my friends, thanks,” he told them.

“What?” said the leader of the worms. “You’d rather hang out with all these other animals instead of other worms? You should want to go with us, we are just like you.”

“But you’re not just like me,” said Harry. “We might look alike but we are very different. I enjoy spending time with the birds, and the fish, and the fireflies. We have so much fun together. You guys don’t look like you are having a good time.”

“Why do you say that?” said the worm leader.

“Because you don’t light up.”

The worms looked at each other. They seemed confused. It was clear they had never even heard about their own bioluminescence.

“Just because you glow sometimes doesn’t mean you’re better than us.”

“No, I’m not better. I’m happier and I’d prefer to spend my time with friends who make me happy and doing things that make me happy. You are welcome to join us. Maybe if you have some nectar or join the dance you will light up too.”

The worm gang looked at each other. Their schedule wasn’t that hectic. The compost pile could wait.

As Harry and his bird friend continued to make music on the forest stage, one of the fireflies flew close to Harry. “Look!” the firefly said. “They’re starting to glow!”

Harry looked at the worm gang. They seemed more relaxed and were talking to some of the ants. Every now and then the worms would start to give off a low purple-colored glimmer.

“You did that!” said the firefly. “You learned all those wonderful things from the other animals and now you taught the other worms to do something new. Even if it’s something they had the ability to do all along!”

Harry smiled and gave off his own purple-colored radiance. It was a much brighter glow than he had ever glowed before.

Harry loved singing with the bird. He loved swimming with the fish. He enjoyed eating with the butterflies and hanging around the other forest animals. He had a great time watching the fireflies dance. Harry loved learning new things and Harry loved being with his friends.

But Harry loved making people happy most of all.