My Mouse Tige

There is a small mouse who joins me nearly every morning in the barn.  He brings a snack and sits just a few feet from my side, holding the rolled kernel of corn like a ham sandwich and munching away, looking straight into my eyes.  Most mice run for cover if we make eye contact.  There are days when he finishes his treat, goes to his stash, gets another and comes right back.  I've named him Tige.

I think you'd have to be my age to remember Buster Brown and his dog and constant companion, Tige.  Although the cartoon strip that launched Buster Brown and his mischievous exploits had run its course by the time I was a kid, I listened to the radio show that featured these characters. "Hi, I'm Buster Brown and this is my dog Tige!"  His dog was, of all things, a pit bull.  Buster's pageboy haircut became the rage for women, but what I remember most were the shoes.  Buster Brown was the poster boy for a chain of shoe stores.  He was then to children's shoes what Jimmy Choo is for women now.  I liked to go the shoe store because they had fluoroscopes that showed the bones of your feet in glowing green.  In our little town, the Buster Brown store was the only one to have this fascinating innovation.  (We didn't know then about the dangers of radiation.)  All this being said, I hated the brown oxfords that were always my mother's choice.  Even worse were the brown socks she sometimes made me wear with them.  Back in the day, kids didn't get to have an opinion.  Even if we expressed one, nobody listened.

On the radio show, Buster had another friend, Froggy.  The line I remember most is, "Pluck your magic twanger, Froggy!" If an amphibian were to join the breakfast club, I know what I'd name it.  For now, it's just me, the goats, and Tige and his friends.