Growing up, my sister, Barb, and I had dozens of stuffed animals to keep us occupied and assist in our creativity. Any time a picture was taken of her on her birthday, she was holding “Ginger Cookie”. Of the dozens that I had, “Boy Teddy Bear” was my favorite, followed by “Winnie-The-Pooh”. My favorite that was belonged to Barb was “Flipper”. It was soft and fluffy, and could be used like a pillow. It had a zipper pouch where you could store things.
The counterpart to my “Boy Teddy Bear” (in blue cloth) was “Girl Teddy Bear” (in pink cloth). That was Barb’s. We considered them brother and sister. They were very nice to each other. Looking back, I considered them as representative of myself and my sister.
A couple of the stuffed animals belonged to our mother when she was a child. As ours were torn during play, mom would sew them up with pieces of cloth she had laying around the house. She also sewed and knitted clothes for some of them to wear. My sister and I would write up skits for them to perform. This was encouraged by our mother. Her parents were musicians and local theater performers. I think she took enjoyment in our creativity.
There was a big tree in our front yard. I climbed it as a kid. A few times we took all our stuffed animals and threw some up in the tree to get them stuck. Then we threw the remaining stuffed animals at them to knock them down.
For years, the stuffed animals were kept in the house I grew up in. As an adult, I decided to take a few of them home with me as keepsakes. Last year when I visited by sister and brother-in-law at the house we grew up in, I was cleaning out one of the rooms that had been left is disarray. Part of the cleaning process was to burn old documents that no longer served any purpose. My sister had kept our stuffed animals in a trash bag. Reluctantly, she agreed that it was time to ‘recycle’ them along with the old documents. I didn’t even look in the bag to see which ones were in it because I was afraid I would change my mind on discarding them.
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