Making a Comeback

When I was younger, the hippopotamus was my favorite animal.  I had figurines, stuffed animals, pictures, and books, all of which either were hippos or featured hippos.  My mom even found a garden statue once.  While I have given away most of my hippo paraphernalia, the garden statue now sits inside my house and is used as a doorstop for the basement door.  Who would have thought?

I also had a very special hippo friend.  He happened to go by the moniker of Harvey, and was what one would call an imaginary friend. Technically, I created Harvey for the purposes of telling stories in our school newspaper.  The moderator asked me to fill the creative writing slot one winter, and I made up a story about a kid and his imaginary friend, Harvey the Hippo.  I'd like to say the characters were similar to Calvin and Hobbes, but they weren't quite so brilliantly written.  I've got a lot to learn from Bill Watterson. Anyway, one of the stories that featured Harvey attempted to explain the existence of Santa, to some degree.  A few other stories were also written for the newspaper, but then I had my life to live.  So I pushed Harvey aside and haven't really thought of him too much since then.

Imagine my surprise last night when, all of a sudden, a story started brewing in my head.  The stars?  A kid and Harvey the Hippo.  I pushed Tim off of the computer, pounded out a couple of paragraphs, and sketched a crude outline of where I wanted to take this thing.  I'd like to share it with Aaron, especially, because I feel that it will be a story for the early elementary school bunch.  I plan on having the girls as readers, and if you all would offer up your kids, I'll send you a copy, too, when it is done.  With the amount of spare time I have, it will take a while to get this thing going, so don't wait with bated breath.

But for those of you that knew me when, I am happy to say that Harvey the Hippo is making a comeback.  I hope he does so with style!