Tweety Has Risen - an Easter Story

Last night I dreamed about my childhood house on Elm Street. I dreamed that I was walking down the street with a group of co-workers (not my real co-workers, just dream co-workers) and my boss (again, not real boss) made a disparaging comment about the neighborhood. I said something like, "it's not really that bad. It used to be really nice - like Mayberry or something. In fact, I used to live right there." I pointed to a tiny mint green house. Now, back in the day the house was neither tiny nor mint green, but this is the stuff of dreams. Just then, a kid is standing in the yard and I tell him that I used to live in this very house and I ask if he might let me go in and see it. I assume he said yes because the next thing I knew, I was standing in a kitchen that looked not a whole heck of a lot like the kitchen of my youth. I also remember being in the attic and my parents bedroom. Again, looking nothing like the actual rooms I last saw in the summer of 1979.

That's it, that's all I remember of that dream. So, why bother to blahg about it? Well, patients my little chicks.

So, this morning, I am sitting in the createry listening to Alex Anderson's quilting podcast and doing research on hybrid vs traditional SUV's when LA-B comes in with a question.

LA-B "hey, you know all those cartoon glasses you have up on the top shelf? Those things are all gonna smash in an earthquake. So, maybe we should take them down and wrap them up so they will be safe."

He was referring to a set of glasses embossed with Warner Brothers cartoon characters that we had collected as kids. They were a promotional item from Carolls' fast food restaurant. It was just around the corner from our house on Elm street. We would walk down to Main street, cross over, pass Pontillo's Pizza and walk a few blocks to get to Carolls where we would buy a fish sandwhich or a cheeseburger and get a glass. They released a new one each week and we looked forward to that day when we could get the next in the series. I don't recall having a particular favorite at the time, although I do remember my dad using Tweety a lot. He'd fill it with milk at dinner, and pour some of that milk into his bowl of vegetables (I know - it always seemed weird to me too).

Those glasses, which were equivelant to a crappy toy one might get in a Happy Meal today, were part of my family's "everyday wear." When we moved from Batavie to Tucson in 1979, they were carefully wrapped in newspaper and packed in a box. They found their place in the cupboards of our apartment in the Barcelona complex, our Townhouse across from the 7-11 and our house out in Carona De Tucson. When my mom accepted a job with Magnavox, those glasses were again wrapped in newspaper, packed in a box, and made the trip from Arizona to Tennesee. We unwrapped them in Jefferson City before moving them to Talbott. It was there, in a cupboard next to the sink, that they would live for more than a decade.

I honestly don't remember when, but at some point my mom decided that it was time to wrap those glasses up again and ship them to me in California. Somewhere in that span of time between 1973 when we first collected them, and the time they arrived in LA, I determined these vessles valuable. So, rather than incorporating them into my "everyday wear." I stored them on the top shelf of my kithchen cupboard rendering them unusable as they were surely a collector's item. We've been in this house for almost 4 years and those glasses proved the old addage "out of sight, out of mind." I am pretty sure they have not been touched in that entire time. Not touched, that is, until today when LA-B proposed that we wrap them up for safe keeping.

Now, here's the thing you should know about me. I am a borderline hoarder, and chronically nostalgic. I assign meaning to some of the most random things. I surgically implant a heart and soul to inanimate objects rendering them invaluable and, therefore, find it impossible to throw them away. I have a rubbermaid tub full of stuffed animals that haven't seen the light of day in 10 years. Their fur is chewed off, their stuffing is so matted that theirs once puffy bodies seem to be filled with hard, cancerous tumors. Many are missing eyes, noses and mouths. I don't know why I am saving them. It's not as if I can pass them on to another child. Frankly, these misfit toys would frighten a kid. Yet, throwing them away would feel akin to tossing my baby in dumpster. While I never cuddled with those cartoon glasses, they are vessels filled with memories of my life.

So, when LA-B proposed wrapping them up for safe keeping, my instinct was to grab a stack of newspapers and get to work. But something stopped me. Perhaps it was divine intervention. Just a few minutes before, I had been watching Easter Mass on cable. A friar was telling the story of Mary Magdelene going to the tomb where she discovered the rock had been moved and the body of Jesus gone. The story goes that Mary Magdelene stood there weeping when a man that at first she thought was a gardener, approached and asked why she was crying. She told him she was sad because Jesus' body was gone. He called her by name and told her not to cry and that is when she looked and saw that this man was not a gardener, but the risen Jesus! The TV friar was saying how important this encounter was to the world, because, had Mary Magdelene not stuck around to weep for the missing Jesus, she may never have seen him risen, and well, who knows what would have happened.

Now, regardless of your religious beliefes, stick with me for a minute. You see, it's Easter, a day that for my entire life I've associated with chocolate and eggs AND, in maybe a lesser way, that story of rebirth. So, on this Easter morning LA-B opened that cupboard and pulled those glasses out from their top shelf tomb and posed the question - "should we burry these?" In the spirit of the day a little voice inside my head said, "take those glasses out of their tomb and ressurect them. For they are not meant to be wrapped in newspaper. They were meant to be vessles and thou shall use them as such."

And it shall be done. Next time any of you come by, you will have your choice of enjoying a cool refreshing beverage from one of 8 colorful characters.

Road Runner Porky Pig Bugs Bunny

Daffy Duck Yosemite Sam Cool Cat

Sylvester
And of course...

TWEETY!