What's in A Name?: Oscar

Who/What Do You Think of When 
You Hear the Name, "Oscar?"



For some of you, you might conjure up the illustrious...

Then others might think of the messy...

I, on the other hand, have another totally different picture.  Remember when I told you about interviewing my Gran when I was a senior in high school?  Well, after the story she told me about war rations and hard times, my mom volunteered some very interesting [and unknown to me before this time] news that my mom and dad had had a hog farm.  I was surprised and a little upset that I hadn't known before about this, and I told her so.  I asked her why I hadn't known about this farm, and she replied, "Where else did you think we kept Oscar?"  She had a point.  You see, I had heard many times about Oscar...the donkey.  [Yeah, you heard right - a donkey.]  The story goes that Oscar the donkey was the beloved pet of my 2 older siblings and my parents after my dad graduated from Texas A&M University [with a degree in animal husbandry, now more aptly named animal science].  Because they didn't have air conditioning, they would sleep with the windows open every night.  However, Oscar the donkey did not understand why he couldn't come in the house.  [When I said he was their pet, I meant it!]  So, every night, feeling the rejection of the family, and possibly thinking that they may have forgotten him once again, Oscar the donkey would stick his head through the screen in the window above the head of my parents' bed and would announce his presence with a loving "bray."  [I mean, how could they forget him, right?] 

Every time I heard this story as a little girl, I would always ask for a donkey.  Secretly though, I didn't want just a donkey.  I wanted NEEDED Oscar the donkey.  In my "Oscar the donkey obsession", I'm sure in each retelling of the story that I conveniently tuned-out the part about the hog farm [which is a funny story in and of itself for another time].  Of course, my dreams of Oscar the donkey didn't include the feeding and cleaning and mucking and whatever else there is in taking care of a donkey [not to mention all the other farm animals...]. I was just thinking of all the love I could give him.

To this day, I still think it'd be cool to have Oscar the donkey, but alas, I don't live on a farm, and I'm pretty sure that Oscar the donkey is "braying" in much greener and heavenly pastures.  However, the other day when I was going through pictures to find suitable ones to use for my Father's Day post, I found a picture of [you guessed it] Oscar the donkey...





The lucky kids on him are my older brother Joe and my sister Susan.  While I can't have Oscar, I have a picture of him!  [I hope he knows, though, I would've let him in the house, or rather, the farmhouse...]

Caroline