You know, we don't have hedgehogs here in Missouri. I never saw one in Illinois, either. But we had them in Switzerland!
I don't know why, maybe hedgehogs are more of a European thing?
I was reading my daily dose of F*UP (warning: PROFANITY IN SITE NAME AND ALL OVER IT) and meandered to a link he posted about a little darling family of hedgehogs who lost their mom in a brutal truck accident but adopted a stiff bristled cleaning brush as their foster mother so everything turned out OK in the end.
And suddenly, I was six years old again, walking home from somewhere in Geneva. I have no memory of where I had gone (I was probably walking our neighbor dog Fritzy), but I do remember seeing a little hedgehog in the grass by the sidewalk. We called them porcupines back then, but I don't think that's accurate.
By the way, I used to walk Fritzy for pretzels. My mother must not have been feeding me or something.
Geneva was a fun place for a kid in the seventies. It wasn't dangerous for us to go out alone. After we moved out of our house, we stayed in a high rise hotel downtown for a week. I can remember my friend Katie coming down to visit me, and the two of us heading out of the hotel, alone, to go to Jouets Weber, the big toy store. Yikes, can you imagine doing that with your kids now? I was seven years old, I think.
And don't even get me started on the "Brett got left behind at the summer day camp in the Alps" story, that's a killer!
Speaking of which, when we were in Geneva, Strumpfs were very popular. We got back to the States and nobody had heard of them....until a year later, when this cute little cartoon popped up on the tee-vee. Only they called it SMURFS! So yeah, I was way ahead of that trend, thank you very much. I still can remember the smell of those painted plasticy rubber figurines. So cute! So stinky! Ah, Papa Smurf. Where've you gone, buddy?
By the way, I used to walk Fritzy for pretzels. My mother must not have been feeding me or something.
Geneva was a fun place for a kid in the seventies. It wasn't dangerous for us to go out alone. After we moved out of our house, we stayed in a high rise hotel downtown for a week. I can remember my friend Katie coming down to visit me, and the two of us heading out of the hotel, alone, to go to Jouets Weber, the big toy store. Yikes, can you imagine doing that with your kids now? I was seven years old, I think.
And don't even get me started on the "Brett got left behind at the summer day camp in the Alps" story, that's a killer!
Speaking of which, when we were in Geneva, Strumpfs were very popular. We got back to the States and nobody had heard of them....until a year later, when this cute little cartoon popped up on the tee-vee. Only they called it SMURFS! So yeah, I was way ahead of that trend, thank you very much. I still can remember the smell of those painted plasticy rubber figurines. So cute! So stinky! Ah, Papa Smurf. Where've you gone, buddy?
5 comments:
Heather, I was at Walmart the other day, and they had SMURFS! SERIOUSLY. I was taken back to my childhood, and that evil wizard Gar-something!!!!!
GARGAMEL!!!
I do like that animal site with the naughty language. I think the bad words are funny, and I also think that might make me immature, but I'm okay with it.
YES! And the cat was Azrael! I used to love the Smurfs! My mom bought my older brother the first season on DVD (just came out last month) and he is loving introducing them to his stepkids!
YES! Gargamel!
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