1968: Pixanne

By Corinne H. Smith

1968:  I turned eleven years old.  I was in Mrs. Young's sixth grade class at Farmdale Elementary School.  Daddy was 39, and he worked as a research chemist at Armstrong Cork Company in Lancaster, Penna.  Mom was a stay-at-home Mom.  We lived on Hathaway Street in West Hempfield Township.  The #1 song on the radio on my eleventh birthday was “Hey Jude” by The Beatles.  Mom snapped this photograph.

   I was not a Mickey Mouse Club or a Romper Room kid.  Captain Kangaroo was the nationally syndicated children’s show that I preferred to watch on TV.  I liked the Captain, of course, and I was also partial to Mr. Green Jeans, Bunny Rabbit, Dancing Bear, and the adventures of Tom Terrific (with his mighty dog Manfred).  I still remember some of the picture books that the Captain read to us.  “Caps for Sale” by Esphyr Slobodkina and the classic folk tale “Stone Soup” especially come to mind.

   Since we lived in the lee of Philadelphia, as it were, and could pick up Philly stations with our rooftop antenna, we had some other semi-local options to choose from.  I really liked Cartoon Corners with Gene London.  But my ultimate favorite show for kids was Pixanne. 

    Pixanne was a female Peter Pan pixie character who was portrayed by singer-educator Jane Norman.  Pixanne lived in a magic forest, and she told stories and sang songs.  She could fly, too.  Oggie the owl and Fliffy the butterfly were among her friends.  She walked around and watered big colorful flowers that grew at the forest’s edge.  She played a magic rock that was really an organ called a celeste, which created ethereal sounds.  Her nemesis was Windy Witch (who Jane Norman also played).  Pixanne ran on WCAU from 1960-1969, and then went into national syndication for the next seven years.  You can see a video clip of the show here.

   

   I was fascinated.  I longed to live in such a place.  Our suburban yard had some interesting sections to it: with a garden, lots of different bushes and trees, and a great sugar maple for climbing.  None of the plants or animals sang back to me.  And anyway, we sat smack dab in the middle of Lancaster County farmland.  A sizable stand of woods was difficult to find.  The only chance I had to walk into one was whenever I went camping with my Girl Scout troop.  Those opportunities were great but were short lived.

   At the end of the show, Pixanne sang this song:

          I’ll see you in the forest

          And I’ll meet you in the forest

          Come to the forest with me

          Where things are always happening

          There’s plenty of things to see

          So don’t go far away

          Come back, come back every day

          Back into the forest with me

Yes, Pixanne, that’s where I knew I wanted to be.

     On a spring day in 1974, Pixanne came up in conversation during a behind-the-wheel driver’s ed session.  Fellow classmate Tom Markow was driving the car, and Mr. Nuhrenberg was guiding him in the passenger seat.  I think they were arguing.  They were always arguing.  That left me and Jeff Gunzenhauser in the back seat.  Jeff was our class president and would later work for many years as a doctor in the U.S. Army.  But back then, he was someone else to talk to whenever Markow drove.  And it turned out that Jeff had been a Pixanne fan as well.  We reminisced and quietly sang “I’ll see you in the forest” while we rode around the farmland of our school district.

     A few years later, at an event at Dutch Wonderland (our local amusement park), I had a chance to meet and chat with Pixanne, Jane Norman.  I thanked her for what she gave me as a kid.  She autographed the back of a photo card for me.  I asked for a second one for Jeff.  (I was prudent:  I decided to mail it to his house instead of his room at West Point.)  He was polite and gallant enough to write me a thank-you note in return.

     Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my past and the influences that led me to make specific choices in life.  And it may sound silly to some, but I can see that it isn’t too far a stretch from “I’ll see you in the forest” to “I went to the woods to live deliberately.”  Had watching Pixanne set me up for loving nature and the forest, and for being receptive to the words of Henry David Thoreau a few years later?  I think it’s possible.  Henry had grown up in an agricultural community, too.

     During my high school and college years, when Pixanne no longer ran in our market, I morbidly tuned in on occasion to WMAR from Baltimore and watched Professor Kool and his Fun School.  It was a nutty show, and except for its use of Herb Alpert tunes, it was a waste of time to watch.  No one could ever beat Pixanne and her magic forest, in my heart.