Long before I left Tasmania I’d suggested to Alex that while I was with him, we really ought to visit the Douglas factory store in Keene, New Hampshire. Alex set aside Saturday for this trip, and we managed to organise (please note that, in a furry context, the phrase ‘managed to organise’ possesses connotations of the miraculous) a rendezvous with two other furries, Hopper Roo and his mate Roofus Macropus, who’d moved fairly recently to Springfield MS (is there a state in the USA that doesn’t have either a Springfield, a Salem, or a Woodstock? (even Tasmania has a Woodstock.) I’m guessing Hawaii may have escaped this mania, but then maybe there’s a town whose name means ‘Salem’ in Hawaiian.)
The Roo’s place was my first experience of an entirely furry household.They’d just moved in, so things were a bit shambolic. One room contained an enormous, floor to ceiling pile of plush which a wardrobe was making a feeble attempt to contain. On one wall were an assortment of badges from earlier furry conventions (reading this now, I visualise a collection of Badgers, which perhaps there was, somewhere in the plush pile.) This of course whetted my appetite for AAC, which was only a week away by now. Anyway, after some formalities, after introducing Dog and (I think) Beth, who were coming along for the ride, and after a bit of the normal furry inertia, we managed to hit the road. Someone - I forget who - had been to the Douglas store before, so there was a reasonable chance we would end up where we were supposed to.
Hopper and Roofus (not the Roofus who once used to post to ALF, FYI) proved to be an endearing pair, who complimented each other well. Roofus was extremely quiet and soft-spoken, whereas Hopper Roo was garrulous and would hold forth on any subject without hesitation. Alex’s mellifluous Boston accent (“Oh, sure” = “Oh - Shooooooor”) provided a nice counterpoint. I have no idea what my own accent did for the tonal balance.
We entered the bottom bit of Vermont, continuing as far north as Brattleboro, where we swung East towards New Hampshire. This was a rather exciting moment for me, as Brattleboro is well known to H.P. Lovecraft fans as the setting for his classic story ‘The Whisperer in Darkness.’ The green, dark and thickly-wooded hills loomed around the place, much as Lovecraft had described - though the effect would no doubt have been enhanced if we had gotten off the main road, and if it had been towards evening. Of crab-like creatures from Pluto there was no evidence at all, and no-one had their brain removed and placed in a metal cylinder. Nevertheless it was a memorable fly-by, even if I didn’t manage to meet Chris Johnson. We’d tried to establish contact with Chris for a few days, when I realised Brattleboro was en-route, but without success (BTW, two blocks from where I live is The Chris Johnson Pharmacy. Never had an excuse to mention that before.)
This was to be my only, brief experience of Vermont. Soon we were over in New Hampshire, for an equally fleeting visit. It saddens me that I was never able to spend more time here, and get away from the highways.
The Douglas factory store turned out to be a bit hard to find. It’s tucked away down a side street, in an industrial area which seems as unlikely an environment for plushies as any you might imagine. For those who don't know, I should point out that Douglas is America’s foremost maker of plush animals. Until very recently their plush were hand-made in the USA (I think their larger ones still are), and the quality - especially of their canines - is exceptional. As I’ve remarked before, if Americans get depressed about Detroit, they can take heart in Douglas.
The store seemed unimpressive and small from the outside, considering the prestige which this plushie-mecca had acquired in my mind. Inside the shop such reservations vanished however. The only staff in attendance was a lady, perhaps in her late 50’s. I have no idea what she thought of four males in the 20’s or 30’s turning up and going into transports of delight over her merchandise, but she seemed quite pleased. The few other customers who drifted in while we were there generally behaved themselves and showed the more critical and less euphoric appreciation which adult decorum prefers. Everyone gravitated towards their phenotype or preferred animal species. Strangely, though my recollections of the store are near crystal-clear, I’m at a bit of a loss for words. Perhaps it’s best to refer to my website, where several photos should accompany this entry. I do have a warm feeling, looking at photographs of myself looking at two Husky plush (Plushkies), who I ended up buying. Pawla and Kali travelled with me and the other plush up into Canada, over to California, and all the way back to Tasmania, where, 18 months later, they’re old friends and beloved companions. In fact they’re both sitting in the chair a couple just by my elbow.
I was sorely tempted to buy the large Wolf, but in the end the cost of posting him back home pretty much ruled it out. For the same reason I didn’t buy the wonderful Camel plush. He was only about $30 - an amazingly low price - but he was large, and unusually heavy. Hopper bought him, and I was a little jealous on the way back, when I spotted him in the rear-view mirror.
(I should mention that one of the reasons for visiting the factory store is that the plush are much cheaper than you would buy them elsewhere. I believe that the Plushkies I bought were supposed to be ‘factory firsts’, meaning they had some supposed imperfection which knocked about 60% off the price. In fact, as far as I can work out from viewing other Douglas Huskies, the ‘imperfection’ with Pawla and Kali is that their tails don’t curl up - but in fact this would have made them Malamutes, not Huskies, so this it actually makes them truer to life. Plush manufacturers - please note: Huskies: blue eyes/wolfie tails. Malamutes: brown eyes/curly tails. Football Spiders: eight eyes, no tail.)
On the way back we stopped briefly in Northampton, MS, which I was told is the home of the Teenage Ninja Turtles. I’m not sure whether this means that it was their home in the film, or that they were first published there.) I remember this about Northampton: my first Squirrel, who totally distracted me, so I spent some time following him around the place, to other people’s amusement. We really don't have anything like this back home. The animals I most often see in trees are brush-tailed Possums (a creature less squirrel-like than these bulky, dim-witted marsupials is hard to conceive of. A favourite past-time of Brush-tailed Possums at my old home in Fern Tree was to plummet out of the gum trees on to the roof at night, where they would impact with a colossal thud, then scuttle across the corrugated iron, and presumably back up into the tree again.) Other things about Northampton that stick in my mind: a science shop where I bought a wolf T-shirt, and an ice-cream parlour which someone insisted we go to, and from which I bought a big ice-cream which melted all over me almost immediately.
We stayed for a little while at the Roo’s place before heading back to the campground. Hopper had a copy of ‘Blood’, which he enthusiastically demonstrated. I have to confess I found the level of violence very off-putting, but then even Quake is a bit much for me. Doom II I can handle, and do play at home, but here lies a problem, because my Arctic Fox, Kiro, who sits on the printer beside the monitor, really doesn’t like the continual roaring of the monsters.)
Back to lake, and out of the boot come the as yet un-named Plushkies. Now the newly expanded family is assembled, and meet one another for the first time.
