As a kid, one of my favourite stories was “The Wheedle on the Needle”. If you don't know it, you ought to get yourself out to the nearest kiddie bookstore or library. Basically, the Wheedle is a furry orange guy with a red nose that glows from his perch at the top of the Seattle space needle, and he hates noises that keep him awake. His nose blinks and glows, much like Rudolf's, while the workers below whistle and work. Of course, as there is with any decent story, there's a wee conflict to solve.
My dad lived in Vancouver for a while (for work) when I was around ten years old, and the rest of us stayed in Calgary. My first ever flight alone was when I went to visit him for spring break. Mom dropped me off at the Calgary airport, he picked me up in Vancouver, and I travelled sans adult chaperone, a “UM = Unaccompanied Minor” identification tag pinned to my t-shirt, surrounded by a swarm of well-meaning, helpful grownups, escorting me safely from the arms of one parent to the other. I stayed for a week, which I thought was brilliant both at the time and now in reflection, and at some stage during that week we drove down to Seattle, a mere 3 hours away. I remember sitting across from the Needle with dad, sitting on a park bench to calm his stomach after a particularly jerky rollercoaster ride, licking an ice cream and searching for the Wheedle. To this day I swear I saw his nose blinking away up there in the clouds.
This trip to Seattle also found me searching for the Wheedle's nose atop the Needle with every glance I got. And again, I swear I saw it every time, blinking away up there between the rain and clouds. In my wanderings through the city, though, I realized that it wasn't ONLY on top of the Needle that I saw the Wheedle. I had seen him elsewhere. Recently. More than once! It was as if after over 30 years of hanging out on top of the Seattle Needle, he wanted to stretch his legs a bit. Get some of the kinks out. Check out what the rest of the Pacific Northwest region had to offer.
As I walked around Seattle's famous Pike Place market, I am sure that I saw that red and orange combination flash behind the counter of the original Starbucks location; throwing fish to a monger at the seafood market; and jumping onto the monorail just moments before the door closed on me, preventing me from getting on myself.
He was all over Seattle.
My friend, Greta, who lives in Seattle with her “village” of housemates, tried her best to help me figure out when I'd last seen the Wheedle since that ten-year-old visit to Seattle. I racked my brains. I retraced my movements from Northern California to Seattle to try to recall any new, lingering images of him.
I had arrived in Seattle in the Jamboree direct from St. Helens, on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon, where I had been visiting another friend's parents for a couple of days. They had taken me on tour all over Portland, from their house in St. Helens where a certain contemporary, cool teenage Vampire series was reputedly filmed, to the hip spots of the hip city like Rose's for cake and Trader Joe's for cool food products, and to Powell's bookstore for, of course...
...that's it! The furry, orange Seattlite was in Portland at the exact same time that I was in Portland!
I remember now. He ran between the bookshelves, up stairs and around corners, only to disappear after just a glance in Portland's famous Powell's bookstore! I noticed him among the other shoppers by his telltale blinking red nose and the orange fuzz flashing and disappearing between the books out of the corner of my eye. Moving so fast that I didn't even register it when I was there. I kept thinking it was a bug or a hair in my eye, but in retrospect I realize that it could only have been him. The Wheedle. And he was in Portland!
Then I realized something else. In both Powell's in Portland and Pike Place in Seattle, he was fast. Agile. He turned on a dime. I wondered: How did a fuzzy, seemingly slow-moving orange monster who had spent the better part of 30 years lounging around on top of the space Needle end up in Portland and become so swift?
Ah-ha!
I remembered the one last hint of a Wheedle encounter of the week was at The Nike Employee Store in Portland, where I considered myself lucky to visit and shop. His orange fuzz stuck out from behind the changing room doors as I squeezed myself into bargain priced, high quality exercise gear. Too focused on the deals I was getting at the time, only now do I remember what he was trying on.
In every place I'd seen him this week, the Wheedle had been sporting a brand new pair of Nike running shoes. Grey. Full of support. Cool. Orange trim, even, to match his fur.
Oh the injustice of it all! I had bought a brand new pair of Nike running shoes when I was in Calgary a few months ago. I had had no premonition that I would soon visit the Nike Employee store in Portland, which would offer me a 50 % savings. This store is a legend among Nike fans and ISA community members. It was bad enough when I saw the shoes that I had previously purchased, mine with yellow trim, for half the cost in Portland. But then my beloved Wheedle had to run through Powell's and Pike Place and the Nike Employee Store flaunting his new pair, exactly like mine but the monster version. You might imagine my mixed feelings of dismay and pride.
At least I can say that the Wheedle and I have the same taste: in cities, bookstores, markets, and shoes.
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| Portland |
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| Seattle |
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