In This Era of Educational Deformity, You Must Be the Bear!

How much more comfort do students in grade school need today when so many of their test scores repeatedly label them as failures?  I know many children will have supportive family members, immediate or extended, friends and other community supports.  But experience tells me, it doesn't hurt to have a teddy bear as well.  Let me briefly introduce you to a few.

Here is Hershey.  He comes from 1940.  He will be seventy-five this year--and as adorable as ever.  He did his job well to comfort a little kid while war raged in Europe and Asia.  He is spending his retirement in my house.  He has a few battle scars of his own.

Here is the elder statesman of teddy bears, quite simply, Teddy.  He is small in stature, but big in spirit.  He totes the big-time button in his ear.  He's seen a lot of wear and tear, but all of it due to excessive love.  He came from Kansas.  I was told that the man who owned him worked for the C.I.A.  This bear has stories to tell--if only he could.  They are top secret!  He is one-hundred and ten years old.  I am secretly sworn to take good care of him.  

Here is his great grandson.  He came to me in 2002 to mark the centennial celebration of his company.  He is a company man, through and through.  He hasn't left his box much.  He's a collector's item--unless one of my girls mistakenly stumbles upon him!  In the end, he must answer the call of duty--even if it means he loses his spot on the Antiques Roadshow!

When I was young, I had a teddy bear named Clyde.  I don't have his photo, but I know where to find him.  He is no ordinary bear.  He walks the docks at night with a shark upon his shoulder in place of the proverbial parrot.  You wouldn't want to tussle with him, so say the big brothers with big imaginations!  And, they know.

Lacking a portrait of Clyde, let me share with you a copy of this print given to me many years ago.  Let Ed. Deformers everywhere beware!  The Bear is real.  Parents and teachers must Be the Bear--in the name of comforting and protecting children who are so readily labeled as failures.

(Copyright, Imaginary Realities)
"My Teddy Will Protect Me"
By Charles J. Lang