Thursday, November 17, 2005

The Friendly Giraffe

One of my earliest memories is of a book I was given by my parents when I was 6 or 7 years old. The Friendly Giraffe told the story of a giraffe named Itsirk (note the backwards spelling) who lived at my address, in my town, had my friends, my pets...in fact, he could have been me, except for that, he was a giraffe. He was my best friend, even though I had never met him. He sauntered by one afternoon down Kathleen West, stopping to say hello to Tammi and Louise, two of my good friends who did not live on Kathleen West. He came to see me and Frosty and Tinkerbell and to take me on an adventure through the Rain Forest, only it wasn't called the Rain Forest then. I don't remember much about what happened next, only that I rode on Itsirk's back through the jungle to a street called Kathleen, 4132 to be exact. It made no sense at all, but that wasn't the purpose. The purpose, of course was to make me feel special, significant, one of a kind, to have a book all about me and my stuff. It worked for a while, until my nephew Travis came along. And with him came Sivart.

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