Heather-Doody

A few days ago my Uncle Wayne came to Chicago to visit his younger brother who is also my father. Uncle Wayne has lived in Akron for the last thirty years or so. I have supposedly seen him on several occasions, but the last time was over 15 years ago, when I was 6 or 7 years old. I don’t remember any of those meetings. When I was little, I used to get some small present in the mail from him for Christmas, a tiny purse or something. Anyway, I was asked to drop by my parents’ house so I could visit with Uncle Wayne.

When I entered my Mom and Dad’s house I did not know exactly what to expect. What I found was that Uncle Wayne is a fairly big man of about 60 or so. As I walked in the front door, Uncle Wayne pried himself out of a chair and like a smiling bear, plodded slowly across the room in my direction. He hugged me as I tried to hug him in return. He then moved me away to arm’s length and said that when I was little I looked like Howdy-Doody, and now that I was grown, I still looked a little like Howdy-Doody, only bigger. Howdy-Doody is one of those television icons from the past that I am not completely familiar with. Others are the Lone Ranger and Captain Kangaroo. For some reason I’m a little more knowledgeable of Lassie.

Uncle Wayne intended his reference as a little bit of good-natured humor and that’s how I took it. Still, I could not get out of my head the notion that I resembled this Howdy-Doody character. So that evening I went online and did some research on Howdy. I found out that Howdy-Doody was both the name of the show, and the name of the marionette featured in the show. The program, which ran through the 1950s, had a cast of reoccurring characters including Uncle Bob, a clown named Clarabelle, and various other characters, some human, some wooden. Of course my biggest concern was what Howdy-Doody looked like.

When a close-up image of Howdy-Doody appeared on my monitor I was for a few seconds upset, but for no real reason the feeling quickly evaporated into a near calm, and then, a moment later, a giggle came out of me. I know it was a giggle because I heard it.

Howdy-Doody

Heather-Doody

If someone were to have said I looked like Howdy-Doody six years ago, when I was 17, I would have been mortified, even if it were an older person like Uncle Wayne saying it, and not some young guy. I’m sure I would have cried, and perhaps lost sleep over it. Even two years ago such a reference would have hurt me, at least for a short time. Now I can actually laugh about it.

My looks have always been fairly important to me. I’ve generally thought of myself as relatively attractive, but not exactly a Miss America. I’m not sure what precisely is going on that allows me to laugh. After all, I’m seeing the humor in the notion that I resemble a marionette that is supposed to be a boy, and not a particularly good-looking boy at that. Maybe I am more at ease with myself, more confident. Or it might be that I am putting less value into physical appearance than I used to, my physical appearance in particular. Perhaps it’s a little of both.

I’m a tiny bit afraid to say this but I think it’s a little bit more evidence of my growing maturity and dare I say; sophistication. But I don’t know, perhaps that’s not it at all. It could be that I’m just relieved that Uncle Wayne did not think I looked like Howdy-Doody’s long-ago costar, Clarabelle. Yes, on second thought, I’ll bet that’s it.      

Clarabelle