Jessica Max Stein

Jerry Nelson and Jessica Max Stein, Truro MA, February 2010

Cape Cod in February has an austere beauty: sand dunes draped in snow, grey-streaked skies, a generous silence. My friend Mallory and I parked outside the house five minutes before our noon appointment and stood by the car getting our bearings. The front door seemed unused, with no path broken to it through the ice-crusted snow, yet a wall of trees blocked the driveway from the back of the house.

“Back here.” From behind the trees came an instantly familiar voice. I had known that voice, in its infinite variations, since childhood, from countless hours of watching the Muppets: the joyous enumerations of Sesame Street’s Count von Count’s (“The Count”); the easygoing raspy laugh of The Muppet Show’s Floyd Pepper; the kind, confiding tones of Fraggle Rock’s Gobo Fraggle (to name but three). It makes me smile, now, that I heard Jerry Nelson’s voice before I saw his face, for I had known his voice so many years.

“Do I hear a twang in your voice?” Jerry asked Mallory, once we were settled in the kitchen.

“I’m from Kansas,” she said proudly.

“I’m from Oklahoma,” Jerry said. “I like to say, I’m from Oklahoma – far from Oklahoma.” Continue reading →