S is for Smokey

When I was very small, my brother Richard was my hero, and he was my curator for what was good and interesting in the world.  What Richard wanted, I wanted.  Then my mom and my Great Aunt Flo went to Yosemite for a little vacation, and my mom wanted to bring us gifts home.  She saw some tom-toms that would be perfect for Richard, but there was only one set at the gift shop.  She looked around, distressed, not sure what to get for me.  She settled on a stuffed Smokey Bear.  I never looked back.  Smokey was my absolute Best Friend.  I took him everywhere.

(This is me and Smokey – I’m clearly asleep, and Smokey is waving at the camera. This is the Smokey now known as ‘Rags’. He still has some stuffing here, but I’ve loved him HARD, and he’s pretty squished already.)

When I was 7, we got Samantha, a Black Lab/St. Bernard puppy. I loved her SO MUCH, she was such a GOOD GIRL…until she mauled my poor Smokey!  I was so furious, I ordered my mother to get a gun and shoot her dead. I was heartbroken. As was his way, my Grandpa sent me a new Smokey that year, for my 9th birthday.I was thrilled to have him, but I kept my old one, which was now a shell of his former self, having lost all of his stuffing. Because I kept playing with him, he eventually lost both of his legs, one arm, and half of his head. I still have him, though his name changed from Smokey to ‘Rags’. The Smokey my Grandpa gave me for my 9th birthday became my main Smokey.

When I was 9 1/2, we moved from Alaska back to California.  Fairbanks was insanely crowded with people coming to work on the pipeline, and we found ourselves with nowhere to live.  My mom, as was her way, decided we were moving, and then got the ball rolling immediately.  Within a few days, Richard and I were on an airplane coming to California, to be met by my Grandparents.  My mom had things to wrap up, so she and Samantha came 2 weeks later.  Richard and I had to fly alone, though my mom had friends in Anchorage who met us and took us to lunch, and I guess the airline took care of us in Seattle.  Richard had the window seat, and I was in the middle.  A poor single man had the aisle.  At some point in the flight, we were playing, and in our game, Smokey was hitting Richard for some reason.  I swung Smokey back and forth, hitting the man in the face.  “Excuse me, you hit me with your rag”, he said, probably wanting an apology, and at minimum for us to cut it out.  I was SO INSULTED, I said, “That’s not a rag, that’s my bear!”  He apologized and ordered another drink.  Poor man.

My last Smokey story is of when Ted and I moved to Philadelphia, the year after we were married.  We hired movers to transport our furniture and boxes, and we drove from San Francisco.  I could not bear to put Smokey (This is the ‘new’ Smokey, the one I got when I was 9) in a box, worried something might happen.  So he rode from San Francisco to Philadelphia, buckled safely in the back seat of our car.  I was much less sentimental when we moved back to California two years later…we had Maya by then, and did not feel we could manage a cross country drive with a 5 month old baby who had definitely NOT outgrown colic, so we shipped our car, and we flew.  Smokey went in the box.

Maya has a Smokey story of her own.  When she was an infant, she was obsessed with my Smokey, and wanted to play with him and bite his nose.  I would not allow her to do any such thing, and barely let her near him.  My mom solved the problem by buying her a Smokey of her own.  She loved him fine, but not as much as I love mine.

Rags lives in a little bag in the closet, along with a few other motley toys from my young childhood that I cannot bear to part with.  New Smokey, aka, Smokey, lives on our dresser, and wears a little hat that Richard’s wife, Kathy, brought Ted home from Russia.

One downside of having a toy that you love entirely, as I love my Smokeys, is that sometimes people buy you more.  I honestly don’t want any Smokey memorabilia. This picture is of Rags, Smokey, little Smokey (gift from my friend Neva), a Smokey Resist t-shirt, gift from Richard and Kathy, and Smokey’s sleeping bag, which Kathy made for him. In case we go camping, I guess. Somewhere around here is a Smokey watch that my mom wore when she worked with small children. My friend Rosemary texted me recently with a picture of a vintage Smokey she saw at a garage sale or an antique shop or something, asking if I wanted it. A small part of me said YES, because it looked like Rags in his prime. But no, I don’t need any more Smokeys, any more THINGS in my tiny house. So I said no, but thank you for asking, and for sending me the picture.

* I was not at all freaked out by the fact that MY Smokey was a stuffed animal that I could carry around, and THIS Smokey was over 6ft tall.  When Maya was very small, she was a big fan of the Corduroy books, and had a stuffed Corduroy at home.   One day, she and Ted happened to be at a local bookstore, when they learned that Corduroy was going to be there for story time.  Exciting!  Then, when an adult human sized Corduroy came out, she freaked out and could not get out of the store fast enough, begging Ted to HURRY and get her strapped in on the back of his bicycle and get them home!