4190 Bears!!!
As we checked into the Super 8 in Hill City, SD last night, we realized that the woman who checked us in has a very special distinction. Jackie Miley is a Guiness Book of World Records record holder for the largest collection of teddy bears in the world - 4190 bears, no two alike! She had a sampling of bears on display in the lobby, though the majority live in her apartment above the hotel.
This morning she was kind enough to take us upstairs and show us around - WOW! There were bears in every possible corner, on every shelf, all over the floor, hanging from the ceiling. Apparently when she was growing up she never had any bears at all and she just started the collection three years ago when she moved to town. That's quick work!Here's Jackie with the very first bear of her collection.
Emily and I had a very large stuffed animal collection when we were kids including many bears (though clearly this collection is in a different league altogether!) My father named our very first teddy bears for us (we were infants at the time). The names he chose were Algernon and Ichabod and the story goes that if we'd been born boys instead of girls, we would have had those names instead of the bears! Good thing we were girls....;-)
posted by julie @ 12:27 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
But just think--if you had been boys and your father had gotten his way with the names, you could have called yourselves the Algernon-Ichabod-Kwong Trio. That has kind of a nice ring to it, doesn't it???
Oliver
Now that you mentioned the bears, please let me share this true-to-life epilogue to one of your performances last fall in some colonial-styled church in Westport, Massachusetts. I went to a consignment shop a week later and I saw this cute miniature bric-a-brac of 3 identical bears in formal black topcoats playing their instruments: piano, violin and clarinet. Sorry, Julie, I pretended the bear was holding a large cello bow. Since you 3 immediately came to mind I purchased it on the spot. When I went up front to pay for it, the lady behind the counter remarked how nice it looked, and without hesitation I told her that it was called "Concerto for Bear & Orchestra" as though it was common knowledge. She must of bought it because she asked me if I was a classical musician, which I'm not. Now I have this little momento of your performance on the shelf of this tall vertical bookcase in my den that I've set aside for the numerous rock star books I've amassed over the past 25 years. You ladies Rock:)
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