Remembering Icky

Writing the essay about how my mother discovered there was no Santa Claus reminded me of…Icky.

In my mom's house in South Dakota are various mementos of our childhood - my brothers and my sisters. My mother is not particularly a "keeper of things". Many of our childhood memories went out the door in rummage sales as soon as they passed from our relatively short childhood attention spans.

But, sitting on a rocking chair in one of the spare bedrooms is Icky.

Icky is a doll. Icky is MY doll.

When I was about three, I had gone to Kresge's department store in Rapid City, SD, on Jackson Boulevard, with my mom. I was old enough to pick out my own present. Apparently, I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted a big floppy doll with messy brown hair and big brown eyes.

My mother tried to encourage me to get some other toy, but my heart was set on that doll. (Being strong willed is definitely a family trait - we tend to know what we want and devil take the hindmost until we get it.)

So we got the doll and took it home. Once home, the doll unpackaged and in my arms, my mom asked me what I wanted to name the doll.

Icky.

She tried to persuade me otherwise, but I knew what I wanted. I wanted that doll. That doll's name was Icky. That was the end of that.

Icky passed down through my hands to my sisters (who are both younger then I am).

Now, my sisters were notorious doll serial killers. Their dolls are long gone.

I like to imagine some archeologist excavating the old ranch site a hundred years from now coming on a succession of dolls buried in a cluster of shallow graves on the wind swept plains, surrounded by an honor guard of lost green plastic army men.

But somehow, Icky made it through the trial and tribulations of a household of wild little Indian kids and all their friends and cousins.

I like to think he is enjoying his retirement, sitting there in a rocking chair, on that ranch on the plains of South Dakota. I take a lot of comfort from that.