Days with Winnie the Pooh

Image provided by
Julie Jordan Scott @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliejordanscott/

A while ago, I published a post about the Liebster Award. One of the questions I was required to answer was ‘What is your favorite cartoon character?’ My answer was Eeyore from the cartoon series of Winnie the Pooh.

With this said however, I come from a generation when Winnie the Pooh was a book, not a cartoon. Of course, it still is, written by A. A. Milne. The Winnie the Pooh book we had at home was gray in color with a small oval in the middle of the front cover that showed the famous bear.

Unfortunately, the book wasn’t mine, at least not exclusively. My little brother and I had to share it. I still don’t know why I’d get so hyped up at times about this fact. You see, neither of us was old enough to read yet. Mom had complete control over the book and when it was read to us.

I was four years old at the time and my brother was halfway through his year of being one. If my brother had been the type to want to chew on every little thing he touched, I could better understand my reluctance to share ownership with him. Instead, he was the type of baby who cried whenever he had any little ache or pain. As you can well imagine, the only quiet place in the house at that time was in my bedroom or in the dingy basement. I referred my bedroom where I had all of my crayons and coloring books.

Mom liked reading to us, so at promptly 7:00pm, which was after the baths and getting ready for bed, she’d sit on the sofa with the book in her hand. I usually sat on her left side and my brother would lean against the sofa pillows reclining on her right. (Shhh… he never made it through a whole chapter without falling asleep.)

Mom would keep on reading while little brother slept peacefully with one knee up and the other up and crossed over that first one. Sometimes he also had his hands holding each other under his head. Yes, Mom has pictures of this. When I think about it now, I’m not so sure that my brother was ever really a child. The minute he started talking, I don’t remember him crying very much or being grumpy. He was definitely unchild-like.

Oops, I got off the subject.

I liked Piglet better that Winnie just because he was smarter. Let’s face it. Winnie wasn’t one to be clear-headed, whereas Piglet seemed to always have a plausible plan. His plans weren’t as good as Christopher’s was, but worlds better than Winnie’s was.

When I was introduced to Eeyore, I knew I had found my special friend; the one you ask to get a stuffed toy of; the one as a stuffed toy went with you when you had to go visit relatives who didn’t have children to play with. The only thing he ever wanted was to be a whole donkey, which he wasn’t at first. You know, he needed that tail.

I liked Kanga and Roo too, but not quite as much as Eeyore. Roo was such a riot, and so very cute. Tigger was okay but he was a little too boisterous for me to get interested in.

And Christopher Robin? He was okay, although a smidgen dull. However, I can’t leave out this very short short story… One of my cousins married a truck driver whose name was Robin. It wasn’t discovered until after the wedding that his whole name was Christopher Robin. No, his parents didn’t name him that. The parents gave that honor to his older brother who, of course, loved the Winnie the Pooh Tales.

Do you have a favorite Winnie the Pooh character?