Steve’s Bear Page

This is our wedding cake topper.  I figured out early on that it would be a good idea to go along with Pattie’s appreciation of teddy bears, so I suggested this, and never regretted it.  The guests at the wedding reception all understood.

This is the first bear Pattie’s dad ever gave her, when she was in the hospital recovering from gall bladder surgery.

This is Penny Bear.  She’s in charge of helping us save up for a second honeymoon.  She’s hollow, made of ceramic, and has a slot in the top of her head.  I think you can take it from there.

These are two of the many Christmas bears that turn up here once a year.

This is Ling-Ling, Pattie’s only panda.  I don’t always give the new bears to Pattie outright; sometimes I just leave them around for her to find.  I left Ling-Ling under the bed covers, and she lay there for two days before Pattie wondered what the extra lump was for and checked it out.  Surprise!

This is Country Bear.  I don’t know where she came from, but she’s cute.

We live in Phoenix, so we’re required to be fans of the Phoenix Suns.  Having this bear on hand fulfills that requirement.

We found Baby MacGregor in a toy store in Tucson, Arizona, and because of the name, we just had to take him home with us.  His daddy, MacGregor, and big brother, MacGregor Jr, were there, too, but we couldn’t afford all three adoption fees at the time, so this little guy is living with us, and maybe some day we’ll go back for the other two.

These are a couple of the “Brass Button Bears”.  Eight of them came out together a couple of years ago, and we bought one a week until we had them all.  The next year, they came out with another series of eight, and I got them all without telling Pattie, and left them out for her to find on Christmas morning.  Eventually, she noticed them.  A third set of ten came out this year, one for each decade of the 20th century, so I got those for her for Mother’s Day.

Here’s another Brass Button Bear, gainfully employed as a book-end.

This is Gus, and he’s a cat, not a bear.  He’s here because the cat we had for a while, Dutchess, picked on Pattie’s dog Princess so mercilessly that we had to find another home for her.  She was a sweet kitty to everyone but Princess.  Pattie got Gus for me so I’d feel better about this.  Princess is gone now, and we have a real little kitty now to keep us from getting lonely.  She’d better get along well with Gus, though.

This is a hound dog that Pattie’s son Mel got for her.  I took one look at him and figured that his name just has to be “Buford”.  He lives on our bed with Gus, Baby MacGregor, and Ling-Ling.  If we ever find a little girl hound dog for him to play with, we’ll no doubt name her “Beulah”.