Whenever I think of DisneyWorld, I think of Grandma. She lived in Orlando when I was very young, and we spent the spring/summer of TMI with her in Florida. After she moved back to PA, my family took her with us on several vacation pilgrimmages back to DisneyWorld, the last time being the week that Disney/MGM Studios opened. She loved the Carousel of Progress attraction, and I would poke fun at her for that. Grandma also had The Disney Channel back when it was a pay channel, and that was always a special part of our visits to her house.

Whenever I see Betty Boop, I think of Grandma. Like many of her generation, Grandma loved Betty Boop, and the character's surprising niche-market renaissance in the late 1980s meant we could always find some new Boop trinket to give to her. On the last day I saw her when she was still semi-lucid, Grandma couldn't remember Betty Boop's name, but she could still recite the famous "boop boop ee doop" catchphrase. The power of cartoons to reach across decades and through the fog of failing memory!

Now I have a new way to remember her: a small white teddy bear she won by playing Bingo at the nursing home. A huge pile of bears had been donated, and whenever somebody won, they could pick a bear out of the pile. Grandma won three times that day. As we cleared out her room this afternoon, I claimed one of the three prize bears. Even though she only saw my son in a picture - and that was so recent that I can't be sure she even knew who I was, much less him - maybe I'll pretend that she picked that bear out for him.

So when I see that bear in little Clark's room, I'll think of Grandma again.