“Hey, Brenda,” Chandler said, holding the porcelain figurine in his hand, “is this yard sale material?”
Brenda moved in for a closer look, took it from Chandler, and examined it carefully. It was a sad tramp clown holding a red umbrella.
“Honestly,” she said, “I have no idea where this even came from. It seems pretty nice, though … shiny, undamaged. Lots of people like knickknacks so, yeah, we can sell it. Put a $5 tag on it.”
The couple had spent much of the morning in purge mode. They were preparing to move to a smaller house after a decade at their current abode, and like many people had collected far more things than they could ever want or need.
While some were headed straight for the dumpster – cracked lamp globes and a vacuum cleaner that would cost more to repair than replace, for example – others still had enough value to be placed on a folding table and snatched up by pickers and browsers. They’d spend the rest of the day gathering them up and prepping for Saturday’s sale.
So far, Chandler had discovered more than 30 lightly-worn ballcaps, several old but still usable softball gloves, and five wristwatches he was willing to part with because, well, he’d given up wristwatches shortly after smartphones were invented.
Brenda had set out dishes, dresses, a few gardening supplies and a microwave. Still, there were plenty of other items that weren’t going to survive the relocation, and the pair wanted to lighten their load as much as possible.
As Chandler prepared to look in the basement for more treasures, Brenda emerged from the hall closet.
“Looks like I found an old friend of yours,” she said with a laugh.
Among some of the items she had placed in a cardboard box was a 1970s era plush football doll, complete with a rosy-cheeked cupid face. The helmet was dingy white with a green stripe and the jersey – emblazoned with a green number one – was faded yellow, with cotton coming out of a busted seam on its left side. It was 50-plus years old and looked it.
“Oh, wow,” said Chandler, pulling the doll from the box. “Good ol’ Bruiser … I haven’t seen him in years.”
Chandler eased down to the floor and laid the doll in front of him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had even thought about it, but its reemergence brought back a flood of memories.
He decided around the age of seven that he loved football, and enjoyed sitting next to his father on Saturdays and Sundays watching college and pro games on their boxy RCA console.
“Dad,” he’d ask, “will you take me to a game someday?”
“You bet, kiddo. I promise.”
Chandler remembered the promise was made in 1974, and the promise was kept that same year. The local college team – the Goldenrod State Yellowhammers – was taking on the Carolina Poly Pioneers at Memorial Field.
More than half a century later, details of the experience remained vivid. The game was played on September 8, Goldenrod State won, 35-6, the hot dog he scarfed down was prepackaged in a foil wrapper, and his dad bought him the toy while they were getting soft drinks at halftime.
“It didn’t look like they had any pennants,” he recalled his dad saying as he handed over the doll (along with a watered-down cola), “but ol’ Bruiser here ought to do. He’ll look good on your dresser.”
For years, Bruiser served as a reminder of Chandler’s first in-person college football game, and occupied various spots in his bedroom – not unlike the “Elf on the Shelf.” It shifted from the dresser to the nightstand and – at one point – found itself on a table by the window, nudged between a red, white and blue football on its left and a plastic football helmet on its right.
But like most kids, Chandler grew out of his toy phase, and Bruiser eventually lost his honored spot in the bedroom. Ultimately, he was placed in a closet and eventually buried under other “fossils.”
Somehow, though, Chandler managed to keep the doll. Despite moving away for college, moving back home to get married, moving away again and residing in three different apartments, two different states and four different houses, Bruiser remained – out of sight and out of mind, but always close.
“Hello,” Brenda said in a sing-song voice. “Earth to Chandler, do you read?”
Chandler looked up and shook his head.
“Sorry,” he said, clutching Bruiser in his right hand. “I guess I went on a sentimental journey there for a minute. Dad got me this when he took me to my first football game. It always makes me think of him.”
Brenda smiled.
“Well,” she said. “I can stuff the cotton back in him and sew him up. Make him good as old again – vintage, even.”
Chandler pulled the doll to his chest.
“Thanks, but … as silly as it sounds, I don’t think I want to sell it.”
Brenda knelt down and gave Chandler a kiss on the forehead.
“Good grief … I wouldn’t expect you to sell it, doofus,” she said. “But if you’re gonna display Bruiser in our new house, we need to patch him up. I want him to look good on our dresser.”