Character Study

     My memories of traveling without a seat-belt in the back of my parents car in the 1970's are some of my happiest. Listening to songs that were often cut in half by the 8-track player , I watched as the stars and street lights of night traveled through my reflection in the window .  Amongst other dangerous things  I shouldn't have been doing in a moving vehicle I often hung my head, hands and feet out that window as part of elaborate dance routines to the songs.  As Kenny Loggins sang "For once in your life /Here's your miracle/Stand up and fight" I  stood up on the seat and made little punching gestures to the sky before plopping down to the floorboards and singing the words  "This is it !" to the song of the same name.
      When my singing and dancing  began to grow tiresome with my parents we would switch to playing games, like spotting  different colored cars and fast food restaurants. Fascinated by the character cut-outs I would see attached to the outside of child day cares , I would scream out everyone I could identify .
      " MICKEY MOUSE, BUGS BUNNY, HECKLE AND JECKLE, GROVER, AND ... " my voice would grow silent as our car passed by , until minutes later when we would pass another "MR MAGOO. FELIX THE CAT, HUCKLEBERRY HOUND..."
       My head would turn back to see the daycare growing smaller through the back window of the station wagon before eventually disappearing for good, likely due to copyright infringement laws. Along with these characters , went the ones that decorated my cereal boxes and the ones that hung around McDonaldland when I went to burn my  (then)little ass on a hot metal slide.
       One day a few years ago, I thought I saw a Mickey Mouse out of my peripheral vision and the thrill of this unexpected discovery caused me to nearly wreck my car in a drastic u-turn. As I squinted at the sign for the daycare that featured the mouse in question I thought maybe he had been either been changed enough to avoid a lawsuit with the Walt Disney Company or that the daycare was for somewhat ungifted preschool artist. If it had turned out to be the later, the next piece of this exhibit was Disney's Daisy Duck interpreted as Warner Brother's Petunia Pig and the final piece was one I might have titled "Who ate the last cookie?", as it depicted a decapitated Cookie Monster.

        After seeing a beloved muppet reinterpreted  by a young Joel - Peter Witkin, I remained silent for two years until I inadvertently passed another daycare and began to scream again.
       "BIG BIRD !!! BRER FOX!!!!  " were the only two names I could scream this time, as it was the only two they had, but it was more then enough.

         As I pulled into the driveway I  quickly snapped the pictures on my cell phone delighting in the fact that it was a classic version of Big Bird ,as he might have looked back when Roosevelt Franklin was a major player on the street . Brer Fox on the other hand was simply unprecedented, almost unbelievable to witness . I could have believed I was dreaming until I took into consideration that I was a forty-three year old man taking pictures of a daycare while sitting in my car, and with that I realized I was in the same dangerous position I was back when I wasn't required to wear a seat-belt. I could hear Kenny Loggins ask "Are you gonna wait for a sign? Your miracle?" and with that I looked at the sky , and punched it.