Even in his prime he was nothing fancy. Built like a teddy bear but with the floppy ears of a dog, “Branigin” was (and remains) my favorite stuffed animal. While my memory of exactly the day I received him is a little hazy (that does tend to happen after 50 years or so), I think that my father brought him home to me as a sort of consolation prize when I was about 2 and ½ years old and was being rather unceremoniously kicked out of my crib in order to make way for my new baby sister.
I think I loved Branigin because he was the one toy that vaguely reminded me of myself. In the mid-1960s of my childhood, diversity and multiculturalism had not yet made its way into society at large, let alone into the world of children’s toys. My older sister’s Barbie dolls were invariably blue-eyed, blondes, while my own black baby dolls were, without exception, all a Hershey-bar brown with jet-black hair. I was not even remotely close to either of those models. Years later, my curiosity into my family tree would reveal, through genealogical research and a home DNA testing kit that my sister purchased, that our family background was an improbable mixture of African-Americans originating in Cameroon on my mother’s side, and Irish immigrants on my father’s. As a result of this somewhat eclectic racial admixture, my appearance as a child was somewhat hard to classify: honey-colored skin and curly-kinky hair that tended to turn a vibrant shade of red whenever I played in the sun. While I didn’t realize it initially, Branigin also possessed a similarly diverse background. His still-intact tag reveals that he was a creation of Gund, a company founded by German immigrant Adolph Gund, and also that he was manufactured in Brooklyn, New York. However, his Irish name is the result of his sporting a “Branigin” campaign button (unfortunately, long since lost) when I first received him. His unusual beige and white color scheme, shiny black button eyes, and teddy bear body with dog-like ears, made his look almost as eccentric as my own.
But mostly I loved him for his “huggability”. I was very timid as a child, dogged by a pathological fear of the dark and the accompanying nightmares and worries about monsters under the bed. Branigin was possessed of a squeezable softness that outdid even Mr. Whipple’s Charmin and his compact size allowed him to fit comfortingly beneath my chin as I lay nervously in my bottom bunk, having been rudely evicted from the security of my crib by a newly born interloper.
(Pictured below – A very cute interloper but an interloper nonetheless!)
With Branigin’s reintroduction into society, I thought it only fitting to research his history and provide a bit more of his backstory. I was vaguely aware that my home state of Indiana had a governor named Roger Branigin once upon a time, but beyond that I knew very little. A Democratic governor of Indiana from 1965 to 1969, Governor Branigin’s background is also somewhat of an “eccentric mix.” He was apparently a progressive activist in the areas of education, highway safety, prison reform, and wildlife conservation. However, when the Indiana General Assembly passed legislation that would have opened the door to legalized abortion and abolished the death penalty, Branigin promptly vetoed both items. This kind of progressive-conservative blend is indeed rare today with many of the late governor’s modern-day successors declaring open warfare on everything from the right to collective bargaining to gay rights. In another interesting twist of fate, however, Governor Branigin is credited with establishing the Hoosier Scholar Award which I won in 1980 and which was partially responsible for enabling the governor’s furry namesake to accompany me to college more than thirty years ago.While other stuffed animals came and went, Branigin alone survives as a link to my childhood. He accompanied me to college and was only relegated to the confines of the cedar chest I inherited from my grandmother when I married my first husband back in 1987. Branigin has survived several corporate relocations, marriage, the birth of a child, a divorce, a second marriage, a major career change, as well as the tragic death of my only child nearly a year ago. In recognition of this somber anniversary I decided that it was time to release Branigin from his cedar-lined entombment to serve as a gentle reminder of all that is important and how that which we truly love can never really be taken from us.
My Branigin, as you can probably see, is fairly battered and well-worn but then who among us isn’t after a half-century or more? When I look at Branigin now I am reminded of the wonderful book, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams:
Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.
The loss of my father in December of 2013 and then of my only son, just six months later has definitely made me feel “loose in the joints and very shabby” at times. But as painful as these experiences have been I also recognize that on some level they have also served to make me “Real”. On some of my darkest days, fear and uncertainty once again lurk in the darkness, and the monsters of hopelessness and despair have taken to hiding beneath my bed. However, I am very blessed to have many in my life who can overlook my worn out appearance and help me to feel as well-loved as Branigin. Resurrecting him now may be just what I need to remind myself of that.
quietlyradical 
