Wordful Wednesday - Puppet Hand

When I was a child my mother made a sock puppet out of an old sock, some buttons and a pom-pom and called him Cecil the Sea Serpent Sock Puppet. This year my grandson was using the "puppet hand" when we were playing board games and I had to pull out Cecil… we had so much fun I neglected my turn every time. I always find that the "puppet hand" has so many uses that I thought I would highlight on one of them to in order to participate in Wordful Wednesday.

In theater I tend to use the puppet hand as a marker— indicating where a given person is if they are absent. You just take your hand and bend it a bit closing the thumb with the upper fingers. You can pivot the wrist a bit and have the hand puppet look around "playing their part". You can even go so far as to say lines by opening and closing the thumb and upper fingers accordingly.

When I was in the play Deadwood Dick there is a scene where we have a hangin' and proceed to take Pong Ping out to the nearest tree and hang him. Because we had to have off stage voices during the scene— and because Pong had to have a costume change— the posse would act out the scene in the far corner of the stage and use the puppet hand for Pong. Because we couldn't risk a flash during a performance, I had someone snap this shot in the green room as proof of what we were doing.

No socks or animals were harmed in the making of this post.