Good-bye Mr. Happy: The Destiny of Things, Story LIV
Mr. Happy is making at least four people happy today!
You can't imagine how happy I am to
finally find this. I've been looking for years to find one. My brother
and I loved our Mr. Happy toys growing up (and still do) and this is
the perfect present for him. Thank you so much. Please let me know if
you come across another.
Hoarder History: Another teacher prop. I had two of these, one I used
in the classroom and the other to show the class the condition I wanted
it to stay in. Yep, I started to buy two of things because my students needed to learn how to take care of things, especially other people's things.
I used mr teaching third grade skills- naming and relating to
your own and others feelings and identifying feelings through facial
expressions. Hope someone gets happy with
Mr. Happy!
I
love this series! I tried to collect the whole set for my classroom
back in the day! Great way to teach feelings for ESL students (English
as a Second Language)
A few more other doubles made it
through my teachings years. One is the Spider character from the How
Spider Saved...Series by Robert Kraus available
here
Spider comes with the book How Spider Saved Valentine's Day.
The other is a vintage If You Give a Mouse A Cookie Doll with book
here.
I've seen the new remade ones of these, but they aren't as detailed as the vintage ones. For instance his cookie has velcro on it, so it can be moved and his overall pockets are so realistic one can use them!
Saying Good-bye:
1. I am so happy that mr. happy made someone else happy and that someone's brother is going to get happy with mr. happy! It's another "
destiny as infinity" story! That's just happy piled on top of more happy!
2. I used a lot of plush toys and dolls in the classroom! They had two favorites, one was a tear apart stress doll called mr. boss. I found him new in his box at a thrift store years ago. He came in real handy with my students that had anger management issues and other's who thought he was fun to let off some steam or just have fun playing with him whether it be taking him apart or putting him back together.
I forgot the name of the districts stress management program for the classroom, but it was count to 100, remove yourself from the situation or talk it out.
Sometimes counting to 100 slowly wasn't enough time for things to blow over, but some would remove themselves from the situation by running from the recess yard to the classroom to tear up mr. boss!
I couldn't find a picture of mr. boss, but I found mr. fisherman!
mr. boss had a cigar in one hand and a briefcase in the other. One was allowed to rip them off and throw the pieces as far and hard as you wanted as long as it wasn't at another person, usually aimed at a closet door. Students could do this privately or openly. I wonder how many fights mr. boss prevented and how much anger he eased all those years.
Sadly, all I have left of mr. boss is his button. I have it somewhere in my hoard and it says, "I'm the boss!"
The class' other favorite was a very large soft teddy bear. He was three or four feet long and had a bell in his tail. On rainy day recess schedule we'd stand in a big circle and throw him around to each other. The classroom had very high ceilings, probably at least 20 feet high, so they had fun throwing him to each other.
Also he was our napping bear. He was so big you could take him to the nap/snack desk and take a nap behind him or on him. One of the challenges of inner city teaching is making sure one's student's basic needs are taken care of. It's very difficult to teach a hungry student, or unhealthy student or one that needs glasses or student who's had a sleepless night due to constant noise, lack of warmth or who knows what.
I have many stories of why my students didn't get sleep when they were supposed to, but this post is already long. Some of my inner teaching experiences I've written about are in Receipt Spike and Service Bell,
Story XIII and
Rewards as Motivation.
So not only were toys and dolls important teaching tools in the classroom, they came in handy in many other ways too!
What I Learned:
1. I am beginning to get a clearer picture of how my hoarding relates to my teaching days. I bought two of many things, so students could use one and the other as an example of how to keep "something" in good condition and take care of it, so it could be used for the next years class.
I have many unused student gifts too! Like this copper
apple pendant,
sterling bangle with bells,
beaded jewelry set, and
Christmas tree brooch. At one time I had saved everything and anything any student had given me and was cataloging them for my retirement, but it filled up a room and in one of my moves I donated it all.
These
bracelets are even souvenirs from my first class field trip to
Olvera Street, named after a local judge from 1877 and the oldest downtown area of Los Angeles, since 1911 and is part of
El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. These
earrings I bought for my first year teaching! Another has already
sold.
3. I definitely have issues with unused gifts and keeping them just because someone gave it to me and it seems impolite to donate or regift them. Many of the items at the shops are unused, used that day or lightly used gifts because I could not bare to do anything else with them but store them! All I can say is at least they are vintage now!
What to do with unused gifts was one of the first things I learned about my hoarding issues due to writing about it so much in either "Side Kick Story" at
VintageToGoetsy or "Hoarder History" on
HoarderRehab.
Now I'm glad to be moving forward with dealing with my teaching things along with my feelings and issues of my drama trauma of being an inner city teacher!
Thank you JT for finding Mr. Happy and making a connection by leaving your story for me and supporting me in my
HoarderRehab adventure:
The Destiny of Things!
Thank you etsy for another
HoarderRehab connection possible!
Thank you US, UK, Germany, Australia,
Vanessa of
vanessasfancy from Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Venezuela and South Africa for supporting my
HoarderRehab:
The Destiny of Things!
Related Stories:
1.
Freddie the Frog : Sentimental Nostalgic Childhood Memories from etsyian
2.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: sibling Valentine from childhood memories
3.
Precious Moments Betsey Clark figurine: inside childhood joke for best friend Valentine
2.
Receipt Spike and Service Bell: my inner city teacher challenges
3.
Rewards as Motivation : relates to my inner city teacher experiences
4.
Christmas Memories from Santa: Story from Apartment Therapy where the comments tell more stories!
5.
Destiny as Infinity: my 6th epiphany story of how some of my destiny as infinity wishes come true!
cncbotts says: Thank you! She's going to become a pocket rosary.
I'm not religious, but as a collector I do love religious artifacts from all over the world! So today, I'm going to learn about the "rosary." My first question what does the rosary have to do with roses?
Here's some interesting information I found about rosaries on wiki:
1. The rosary (from Latin rosarium, meaning "Crown of Roses"[1] or "garland of roses"[2]) is a Roman Catholic sacramental and Marian devotion to prayer and the commemoration of Jesus and events of his life. The term "Rosary" is used to describe both a sequence of prayers and a string of prayer beads used to count the prayers.
2. The sequence of prayers is the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary ten times, and the Glory Be to the Father, sometimes followed by the Fatima Prayer. Each sequence is known as a decade. Five decades are prayed, after beginning with the Apostle's Creed and five initial prayers. The praying of each decade is accompanied by meditation on one of the Mysteries of the Rosary, which recall the life of Jesus
3. There are differing views on the history of the rosary. According to tradition, the concept[24] of the rosary was given to Saint Dominic in an apparition by the Virgin Mary in the year 1214 in the church of Prouille. This Marian apparition received the title of Our Lady of the Rosary.[25] In the 15th century it was promoted by Alanus de Rupe (aka Alain de la Roche or Saint Alan of the Rock), a learned Dominican priest and theologian, who established the "15 rosary promises" and started many rosary confraternities. However, most scholarly research suggests a more gradual and organic development of the rosary.[26]
4. And lastly there are four different mysteries depicting Jesus' life: Joyful Mysteries, Luminous Mysteries, Sorrowful Mysteries, Glorious Mysteries and a praying schedule. Read more about rosaries at wiki here.