My Favorite Literary Character by Ray S

A footnote to our storytelling: Don’t forget Peter Rabbit, Peanuts’ Charlie Brown, or Alice. “It is an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.” Oscar Wilde.

Seven a.m. and it’s my Monday morning challenge. No, not that—my muse and I have been fooling around since last Monday with today’s subject and it’s been difficult to boil down the vast numbers of characters, if you count the fictionally named heroes of gay porn. But that’s a matter that does not qualify for the highly intellectual subject matter for today.

As a child having a reading difficulty, my character inventory was limited to the delightful poems of Mr. Stevenson and his "A Child’s Garden of Verses". What fond memories I have of “The Land of Counterpane.”

When I was sick and lay a-bed,

I had two pillows at my head,

And all my toys beside me lay,

To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so

I watched my leaden soldiers go,

With different uniforms and drills,

Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets

All up and down among the sheets;

Or brought my trees and houses out,

And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still

That sits upon the pillow-hill,

And sees before him, dale and plain,

The pleasant land of counterpane.

Oh, and yes from a more recent time when I used to read to my kids the adventures of Maurice Sendak’s “Nutshell Library,” “Alligators All Around,” and “The Moral of Pierre is: CARE” and many more.

My literary life didn’t include Oscar or Gore, but with the advent of my SAGE time of life I have discovered and learned to love a truly fabulous cast of characters through the offices of the genius of my hero Armistead Maupin. I shall never forget the tale of the long journey from the Blue Moon in Winnemucca, Nevada to the house of Barberry Lane. That’s how I met my most favorite literary character—and first acquaintance with the “T” in GLBT, the Queen of 28 Barberry Lane, Mrs. Anna Madrigal. She is a role model for everyone—no matter which way you swing!

© 10 March 2014, Denver

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