Teddy bears more meaning than `just a toy'

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

The nose is missing. My father says it has to be in the glove compartment of my car because that's where I told him I'd put it. He said I called specifically to say that the nose was in a baggie ``in my glove compartment, Dad'' so that I'd have it with me the next time I visited.

The problem is the nose isn't there. I've looked through the glove compartment, taken everything out, shaken everything. I even used a flashlight.

The nose is gone.

For 25 years it was right where it belonged, smack in the middle of Teddy Ruxpin's face, tightly hinged in the beginning, wobbly by the time my youngest daughter outgrew the talking bear.

When she was 3 or 4, it was the only thing she asked for one Christmas. I waited in a long line at Bradlees to get him. The line stretched into the parking lot. But Teddy Ruxpin was worth the wait.

So his nose wobbled? And, so, yes, it sometimes fell off, a scary thing, having a nose fall off, being able to see straight into the inner workings of a talking bear.

But I couldn't part with him, not when my daughter first abandoned him, not even later when she grew up and moved out and on, leaving all her childhood toys behind.

We gave away most of them and packed up some. I took Teddy Ruxpin and placed him high on a shelf in my bedroom closet. And there he has sat peering down at me for years, biding his time, waiting to be, for a little while anyway, the apple of some other little girl's eye.

A month ago, I dusted him off for my granddaughter, Lucy. I took him down from his perch and bought him new batteries and located the one and only Teddy Ruxpin tape that remains from what was once a collection of tapes. And all was well: Teddy, like Frosty, his on-off switch the magic that would bring him to life.

Except the switch didn't work. ``Off'' or ``on'' Teddy remained silent. But maybe the switch was fine and the batteries didn't work. Or maybe it was the tape? Or maybe it was simply that Teddy didn't have anything more to say.

I called my father, who can fix anything.

``Bring him to me,'' he said.

My daughter drove him there. I like to think that this bear was so excited about being with her again, in the front seat next to her - after all, she was the one who brought him to life the first time - that his nose popped off from pure joy. I know, however, that it is far more likely that his nose, attached to his face with a single hinge, gave out as she carried him, probably upside down, to the car. In any case, Teddy Ruxpin arrived at my father's house noseless.

``Don't worry,'' my father said. ``If you can find the nose, I can fix that, too.''

I found the nose in the driveway, miraculously unscathed. And my father got Teddy Ruxpin talking again. The plan was that the next time I came by, he'd take the nose out of my glove compartment and permanently affix it to Teddy Ruxpin's face.

Except that now the nose is gone.

I could go out and buy a Care Bear or a Bear in the Big Blue House bear. They're softer and shinier and they probably sound better, too.

But these bears are not Teddy Ruxpin. They're not the bear who sat under a Christmas tree smiling his hello so many years ago. They're not the bear I heard talking late at night, telling my small daughter stories, keeping her company when all the other humans in the house were in bed. They're not the bear I looked at every now and then, in my closet, waiting along with me for another little girl to come along to love.

``I'm going to search the car and the house until I find the nose,'' I tell my father. And he doesn't say, ``Don't,'' or ``You're wasting your time.'' Because he's a father and a grandfather and knows well the real worth of beloved, old bears