It was a mild, breezy morning in September. I was standing on the driveway of my parents’ house in St. Louis, Missouri, staring into the trash can, where I had just unceremoniously dumped an iconic image of my childhood. Big Bird. In piñata form.
Whenever I visit my hometown, I stay with my parents. They still live in my childhood home. And I always stay in the bedroom of my youth. Of course, now, it’s the “guest room.” (They remodeled after I moved out).
During this particular visit, my dad had propped up my once-beloved Big Bird piñata precariously on a white wicker rocking chair in the guest room. The edict was clear: “We don’t care what you do with Big Bird, but he’s not staying here!”
The piñata had seen better days – the paper maché feathers, once a vibrant banana yellow, were pale and torn. A blanket of dirt and dust had collected on the ole’ bird’s crooked beak. The misshapen, too-small-for-the-head-and-body orange feet were frayed and decomposed. While Big Bird’s facial expression was the same as I remembered, somehow, there seemed a hint of sadness in his eyes, like he – this inanimate object – knew he was too old, too dirty, too dusty to serve any remaining purpose. A far cry from what he looked like when I first saw him.
The Big Bird piñata and I met when I was 6 years old, in the midst of a summer vacation that took us to Texas, through some border towns in Mexico, back north through Colorado, and then east through Kansas and Missouri. These were the pre-minivan/SUV days, so three growing boys with knees slammed against each other bickered in the back seat, while my dad used Frank Mills’ Music Box Dancer, Hooked On Classics, The Statler Brothers, and other assorted 8-track tapes to try to entertain us. When that didn’t work, he cranked up the heat to try to put us to sleep.
Halfway through the trip, we stopped in Juarez, Mexico, where we bought ill-fitting sweaters and jackets, more blankets than any one family could possibly need, and a small, prickly gold leaf metal tree – a monstrosity that would eventually cut into all of my extremities in the years to come.
I was out of my element in Juarez – the shops were small and cramped, the items for sale looked nothing like what I was used to seeing at Target and K-Mart. But in this one shop – on a bottom shelf (which, when you’re six, is really the only shelf you’re looking at) was Big Bird, my beloved Sesame Street friend! So, I begged and pleaded, and my parents capitulated and bought it. Truth is, it didn’t really look like Big Bird, exactly. It certainly wasn’t a sanctioned product of the Children’s Television Workshop. But it was yellow, so close enough. When we returned home, they hung the Big Bird piñata in the corner of my bedroom, where it remained for my entire childhood.
Why was I so drawn to Big Bird? I think for the same reason that giant yellow bird has endeared himself to generations of kids. Carol Spinney, the man who has lent voice and action to our feathered yellow friend for 40 years recently explained the phenomenon to Frazier Moore of the Canadian Press:
"For the first few shows, he was just a silly, goofy guy. Then one day I said, 'Big Bird should be a kid. Forget the fact that he's eight feet tall.' And real children accepted him."
I think Spinney’s right – I accepted Big Bird, considered this Sesame Street character my friend, in large measure because he was my age, saw the world as I saw it, asked the questions I would ask. So, is it any wonder that I’d want an image of Big Bird hanging on the wall across from me, comforting me throughout my childhood? (Even if it was in the form of a piñata, which traditionally is beaten repeatedly with sticks until broken open, in the hopes that there’s candy inside! But I digress).
This may also explain why, in the years after I moved out, whenever my parents would hint at tossing out the Big Bird piñata, I would implore them not to do so. It’s like they were saying, ‘sorry kid, it’s time to dump out this link to your childhood.’
But once I took a good, hard look at the time-ravaged ole’ bird, I had to face facts – it was time to let go. So, on this not-so-particular September morn, I walked outside, opened up the trash can lid, and, with a shrug, dumped the piñata into the can. I lingered for a moment, staring at the image – a sorry, mangled paper maché bird, mushed into a pile of banana peels, an egg carton, and other assorted refuse. But you know, I didn’t feel sad about it. Even the six year old in me was alright with it. It was just another lesson Big Bird taught me – that sometimes, you just have to let go.
Big Bird – and Bert and Ernie, and Kermit the Frog and the rest – these characters who taught me how to count, and what the letters of the alphabet were, and why it’s important to share, and that it’s not easy being green, and so many other important lessons – they have become such an indelible part of our culture, and have come to mean so much to so many of us, that it doesn’t really matter if we own a Big Bird piñata, or a hundred Tickle-Me-Elmo dolls. What matters to me is that the lessons I learned from Sesame Street when I was six are roughly the same lessons six year olds are learning from the show today.
As Sesame Street celebrates 40 years on television, I congratulate the people behind-the-scenes at Sesame Workshop who have helped to create these friends of generations of children, who impart valuable lessons all over the world. During Thursday’s (11/12/09) Radio Smart Talk, we spoke directly with some of the show’s characters and creators, plus another neighborhood’s Speedy Deliveryman, Mr. McFeely from Mister Rogers! If you missed it, catch the conversation below, and be sure to share your Sesame Street memories with us at the bottom of this page. Piñatas optional.
- Craig
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