MUGS
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| The complete MUGS book is at the end of this blog
1983.....With the advent of the personal computer, the kind of
games and experiences that I had been creating for
museums turned into a real profession and I was offered
a position as a junior software designer at Mattel Toys. It
was California, the beach and computers. I loved my new
job.
One day while driving I saw a large garage sale. New
Yorkers are not exactly familiar with garage sales (the
first time I saw one I thought it was an eviction) but I
stopped anyway just to check things out. While I was
looking around I saw a couple of stuffed animals lying
face down in the grass. They looked so sad. Now maybe it
was because I now knew how much work went into
creating those characters or maybe it was because I
knew that each of those animals had helped bring up
some kid, I bought both of them. I think it cost me 20
cents. On my way home I stopped at several more garage
sales and by the time I got home I had about 25
different very well-loved stuffed animals in my
“collection."
I set them all up around my living room, and then went about my day. Later, when by chance I happened to look over at them, I could swear that they were all now smiling.
I was hooked. Every weekend I set out with the newspaper and Thomas Guide hitting every garage sale I could find and buying up every dejected, rejected stuffed animal. And every garage sale had them. I carefully numbered and tagged each one and kept records of where and when I had rescued them.
Soon I had over 2000. I didn’t know exactly why I was doing this. At one time I thought that I’d create big ‘MUG’ books and have kids in hospitals pick one to adopt, but health and cleanliness rules made that impossible. In any event my house was quickly filling up.
Now it just so happened that I had to leave the place I was renting and I was able to buy a nice little house in Redondo Beach. It was a California Craftsman cottage, built in 1910, up on a small hill with a tiny ocean view. It was beautiful. It was also Christmas time and I noticed that my new neighbors had adorned their homes with lights and displays for the holiday season. The first Sunday in my new house I got up at dawn, went to the garage where all my stuffed animals were stored in garbage bags and began to set them up on my front steps.
A couple of minutes later a little kid came up to me. “What are you doing?" he said. “I’m just setting these stuffed animals up on my stairs so each of them has an ocean view," I answered.
“He thought about it. “Can I help?”, he said. Shades of Tom Sawyer, I saw some free labor appear. Soon he was busy planning each animal’s place and position. Not five minutes later a little girl showed up. “What are you doing?” she asked me. “Ask him," I said pointing to the little boy, and when she did his answer was "Settin' 'em up...ocean view.”
And then somebody called the L.A. Times....
After the article was published in the Times it
seemed as if everyone at Mattel knew who I was. I
also received letters from people about their stuffed
animals.
The stuffed animals remained on my steps for a week
or so. Even though a lot of people drove by and took
pictures, not one animal was ever taken. I wouldn’t
have minded because I was already wondering what I
was now going to do with them. Then I received a call
from the sister cities program of Redondo Beach.
Every year they formed a ‘caravan of cars’ that drove
to their sister city, La Paz, Baja, Mexico, to bring toys
to children who might otherwise not get anything for
Christmas. They wanted to know if I might have
something to contribute. I did. I definitely did.
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