So I have been drawing on things from my childhood that added brightness to my day and helped chase the blues away. Although I have depression that cannot be abated without chemical therapy I believe that trying not to feed into and working on distracting myself to focus on more positives in my life helps to make the depression more manageable and hopefully shorten the duration of my more down periods. Onto childhood memories of happier times and items that I remember best.
Gumby-Hey he’s a little green clab of clay (man, I love the word clab, not to mention his happy-go-lucky theme song), who could ask for anything more? I think what I love most about Gumby is his flexibility and the fact that he has lots of friends, but one close friend, Pokey who is always there for him.
The Warm Fuzzy Tale-I love this book and think everyone on the planet should read it. This is my favorite childhood book and tells the tale of warm fuzzies. What is a warm fuzzy you ask? It is something nice that someone else does for you. It can be small, like a compliment, or large, like someone helping you with your work, but a warm fuzzy is something done from the heart. Cold pricklies are the polar opposite of warm fuzzies, they make people cranky and sad when you give someone a cold prickly. This is a great book for teaching children the impact their words and actions have on others.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster-What a funny book, I can still remember sitting in 3rd grade laughing my head off at the adventures of one bored little boy, Milo who ends up on an adventure of mythic proportions. The double entendres in the book are perfect to entertain young adult readers and the skill with which Juster presents his odd cast of characters is nothing short of genius.
In The Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord and Marc Simont-This book focuses on a young girl Bandit Wong who emigrates to the United States in 1947. Her trials and tribulations over assimilation into American Culture made me more aware and sensitive to my Grandparents and relatives who came to America from Germany. Her story is paralleled with the tremendous success of Brooklyn Dodger and national hero Jackie Robinson, a black man making a difference both on and off the field. I loved the multi-cultural subject of the book and felt such a kinship with two very different people with so much in common with me, feeling of alienation, wanting to be accepted, and acting in line with your moral and ethical beliefs. A great book!
Labyrinth the movie (of course)-This is my favorite movie, which you might know if you have read any of my previous posts. Jim Henson is a genius full of love and lessons for children of all ages. Plus David Bowie looks uber-hot as the Goblin King despite his pedophile tendencies towards Jennifer Connelly’s teenaged adventuress Sarah.
Star Blazers (AKA Space Battleship Yamato) and Battletech Anime Cartoons I often confuse the characters and storylines from both of these amazing anime series, but still remember them with a great deal of fondness since I loved the soap opera like stories and the three dimensional people portrayed in them. I felt like they were cartoons meant for grown-ups, but marketing to kids here in the U.S. I did find out via Wikipedia that the 5 feature movies created in Japan were meant for adults and that the original film Yamato beat out Star Wars at the Japanese Box Office (gotta love Wiki!). They removed a great deal of violence and sexual references to create the U.S. version so I think I might try and obtain the original Japanese versions of Star Blazers with subtitles if they exist.
Wish Bear from the Care Bears-I don’t know exactly how it came about, but my Mom and I (mostly her hard work and sewing expertise to see it through) wanted a sewing project and we found a Care Bear pattern of my favorite bear and made it in the early 80s. I still smile when I think of Wish Bear, I think he’s in my parents home still and I plan to grab him when I visit for Thanksgiving. His original job is to help make wishes come true, but he also reminds people to believe in their dreams.
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Some friends and I would religiously watch "Gumby and Friends" in the dorm common room my first year in college (no drugs involved ... you don't need to be high when watching Gumby, it's a trip enough as it is) and there was one where Gumby went into a book on the First Thanksgiving and when he came across the first Puritan male he found ... and said the immortal line: "Hey Pilgrim Boy." "Pilgrim Boy" quickly joined our common vernacular and became a greeting/insult along the lines of "Nice going Pilgrim Boy" or "Way to screw up Pilgrim Boy" or simply "You're such a Pilgrim Boy." Sophmoronic, I know, but it had a certain bon mot quality to it.
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