Artifacts: Little George and the Bee

  

 Lately, my mother has completed the sale of, and removal from, the house she has lived in for the past 36 years. Amen, and that is all I have to say about that.

But some strange items have made their way up out of the murk. Above left is Little George. I loved this thing as an extremely small child. I'm pretty sure he is named after a friend of my parents. I thought they looked alike. To my very imperfect recollection, there can have been no points of actual physical resemblance between big George and Little George. Maybe big George's ears stuck out, but maybe not. I think now that it was the fact that big George had a jolly and approachable demeanor. I liked him, I liked this monkey, I named the monkey George. The Curious George books might also have influenced my decision, but somehow I don't think so. I have really got no other memory of big George except his existence, and my commemoration of him with this rubber monkey.

Here's a view of George alone. He looks like he has a moustache and soul patch these days, but that's just because the yellow paint has worn off his lips. I remember holding him so that each of my thumbs fit just perfectly into one of his ears. It was very pleasing in its symmetry.

The Bee is probably the most photogenic little wad of plastic I've ever met. There's no mystery about why I loved this thing so much when I was a baby. Lookit those peekity eyes! My goodness. It's even got little eyelashes painted on it. And six cute little nubbly feet. Its head swivels around, too, which gives it more range to display surreal magnitudes of adorableness. I think my niece Bea looks like this sometimes.


I have a number of other curiosities to show you, but that's for later. Meanwhile, I'll put a few more shots of these things up on Flickr, if I remember.