The Esso Bee

    One day, as a kid, I walked to the local drug store, and at the counter I saw a display of post cards. I got so excited! Post cards of North Boston? What pictures were on them? The town was so beautiful to me. What views would a photographer have found to make post cards of, and would I recognize them?

     The excitement soon faded as the post cards in the North Boston pharmacy were not of local scenes at all but rather they were generic – goofy messages that could be sent from anywhere.

     A particular post card stood out, however, and has stayed with me forever – I think about it every time I write a postcard these days.

     The front of the card had a deer. It was not a photo of a deer but rather more like a Disney deer. The deer did not have antlers, and it was moving toward the left side of the card, and its eyes were big – not cartoon big, but rather very wide open big. To the right of the deer on the postcard was a bear. The bear was on two legs following, maybe even running, after the deer. And at the bottom of the picture was the message: A little deer with a bear behind.

     !

     Well I was not expecting that!

     Later I told Mom about the postcard.

     She told me to watch my mouth!

     While writing out cards last week when we were in Vermont, I told Clark about the little deer with a bear behind and Mom's reaction to it.

     Clark said that when he was in grade school, a classmate asked him one day, “what kind of bee flies from gas station to gas station?” and the answer to the riddle was “an Esso bee”.      Toby said he told Mom the riddle when he got home. And Mom told him to watch his mouth! It was a few years later when Clark figured out Esso bee/SOB and why Mom said what she said.

     Every town should have its own postcards – they could be pictures of the scenery, or local restaurants, or the annual festivals, or the historical markers, or the old timers, or the Esso gas stations – I would buy them!

199 20150718 The Esso Bee