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| J.P., Gertrude, Ilga and me at the Arlington's Children's Parade, circa 1979. |
Chris Wedes, better known as Seattle children's TV host J.P. Patches, died today after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 84.
Now, why on earth would I burst into tears at this news?
I think because, like many "Patches Pals" around the Puget Sound are feeling right now, I feel as though I have lost someone who, while I didn't know him personally, felt like my friend.
I watched "The J.P. Patches Show" religiously from the time I was old enough to sit up and watch TV, until the final show in 1981 — yes, 1981, when I was entering my freshman year of high school.
The show went off the air just at that moment I found myself at that fragile threshold between childhood and adolescence — where I still wanted to play with Barbie dolls, but also yearned to wear makeup (Cover Girl makeup, not clown makeup).
It was literally not just the end of an era, it was the end of my childhood.
While the show was on, though, I had the opportunity to meet him not once, but twice: first, on a tour of the KIRO-TV studios in elementary school, and the second time, during the summer of 1979, when my lifelong friend Ilga and I entered ourselves into the Arlington Children's Parade as a pair of gypsies. We won first prize in the "group" category, and were presented with a cash (!) award by J.P. and Gertrude.
At its peak, "The J.P. Patches Show" on KIRO/7 had more than 100,000 daily viewers daily and was broadcast in the morning and afternoon. It debuted Feb. 10, 1958, and when it went off the air in 1981 it was the longest running locally-produced kids show in the United States. — seattlepi.com
Now as an adult, Wedes' passing signals another end of an era, the loss of one more icon of the Seattle of my childhood in the 1960s and 1970s, a place that had true character... and characters.
So thank you, J.P., for being my "pal." You will be missed, and always remembered.
