THE EDEN VALLEY STORY (A 40TH ANNIVERSARY SERIES)
as told by Bette Lou Higgins, Artistic Director

PART 10

Probably one of the most unusual stories about our audiences involved a church group that didn’t stick around long enough to actually hear the outcome of a storyline they “thought” they didn’t like.

Most of our scenarios had various “side stories” that happened simultaneously. One of the popular side stories during our “pay day on the canal” programs was done during the Medicine Man event. Several of our women portrayed “Ladies Of The Afternoon” (it was a day time program!)

Now remember, this was a family show, so though the adults knew the actual “job” of the Ladies, we never actually DID anything overt.

Anyway, of course, besides gambling (which we had going), one of the obvious activities on pay day was canalers “visiting with the Ladies.”

So when the Medicine Man would come to town and run off with the townspeople’s money, the Ladies (who also got scammed!), were equally upset over this. So, later in the day, the Medicine Man would come back to town (often with a bad disguise) to spend his ill-gotten goods with the Ladies. But of course, you couldn’t fool these women twice and they knew who it really was. So there would be much flirting and the Medicine Man would pick out his lady and then they would go “into another room”. Shortly afterward, the lady would come running back into the village waving the Medicine Man’s pants and throwing money to everyone shouting that she got their money back! The Medicine Man would then come running out in his long johns to try to get his clothes back, but the townspeople would ban together and chase him out of town. The Ladies of the Afternoon would prove to be the upstanding citizens and the heroines of the day!

Well, one Sunday a church group arrived by bus in the village and it was the day of “the Medicine Man.” When they realized who some of the women were portraying they were outraged! They came to the hotel to complain and I tried to tell them that not only was nothing overt actually going to happen but that the point was that the women were going to be upstanding citizens in this story. But they would have none of it. They stormed back to the bus and never saw the come-upance of the “bad guy.”

The Con Artist gets caught with "his pants down!"

To be continued ...