Dean Poling: Of Mr. Robert and the flat snowman
Dec. 10—During the day, the snowman looked like a cartoon puddle. What Frosty turns into when he's stuck in that greenhouse in the old animated Christmas special.
What seemed to be a melted snowman under the warm December light of a South Georgia day was really some sort of synthetic material, white with swirls of color representing a squashed top hat, a scarf, a crumpled carrot nose ... A flat snowman.
Yet, every evening, when a parent arrived home from work, Dad or Mom pushed the extension cord running from this flat snowman into an electrical outlet, and nearly as fast as Santa magically reanimates Frosty in that old cartoon, a fan filled the synthetic material turning the flat snowman into an inflatable snowman.
A robust balloon creature towering eight-feet tall, lighted from within, staked to the ground by plastic spikes and twine to keep him from blowing away in the wind, or bouncing out of the yard and into the street, or at least as far as the extension cord would allow him to travel, from the constant hum of the fan.
One can find these inflatable snowmen, Santas, reindeer and more throughout numerous yards come Christmas. Some folks leave these characters electrically juiced and inflated, day and night, throughout the holidays. Others, like this family, unplugged them before going to bed each night, leaving a flat snowman to litter the yard for most of the night and all through the day.
The kids liked the snowman and enjoyed watching him come to life each evening. A regular ritual until the one weekend night when the family had been out and about. They returned home after dark. They tumbled out of the car and realized their flat snowman was gone. Taken. Stolen.
Snowmanapped!
All that was left was a plastic stake teetering out of the ground and one long strand of twine.
The father said, A robber has stolen our snowman. Why would a robber want to steal a flat snowman?
The father jumped in the car. He drove around the neighborhood to see if his snowman was inflated and waving from someone else's yard.
He did not see his snowman and noticed that a few other inflatable characters were missing from outside of neighbors' houses.
Returning home, the father entered the house, declaring, a robber has stolen flat snowmen throughout the neighborhood.
One son, then 3, curled his face into an angry gleam. Why, the young boy said, would he do it? Why would Mr. Robert steal our snowman!?
Mr. Robert was what he called the father of one of his friends. To the boy, "robber" translated into "Robert" which further translated into "Mr. Robert." The boy said he was going to make his friend have Mr. Robert return the flat snowman.
The parents took great pains to explain that robber is not the same as Mr. Robert. That Mr. Robert has no interest in stealing flat snowmen. The boy seemed to understand but viewed Mr. Robert with suspicion for some time to come, especially at Christmastime.
Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.
