Howard & Happy

Pam Tobias

In 1976 each of our two youngest boys slept with a favorite stuffed animal. Jason’s was “Howard”, the dog and
Craig slept with “Happy”, the monkey.

They were both five years old. I had just started taking a drawing class and I needed to submit a sketch for a small showing from our class.

I sat the boy’s stuffed animals side by side and sketched them. The other day our daughter was helping me clear out some old boxes. She found the sketch of “Happy & Howard”. It had holes in the bottom of the paper and was still taped to the blue mat which had been framed for the show. The frame had been removed and used elsewhere years ago.

Our boys are both 47 now. My daughter asked, “just toss it?” I said “yes, but let me take a picture first. So I snapped a picture with my cell phone. I sent the photo to each of the boys and they remembered it!

I imagine that we all would have forgotten it, I’m sure, if not for the photo. So I thought I’d submit to the Creative Center. Some things are simply too sweet to forget!