My mom stopped here in Columbus on her way down to Georgia to visit my brother and his wife. (Their daughter is due to be born any moment now.) She brought me a bag full of things of mine, as mothers often do.
These are a little wooden Ultra Car and Danny, probably put together when I was in late elementary school. Many of you know my grandfather passed away a month or two ago. When I would visit him when I was little, he had a bucket of scrap wood that I would build things from. These are totally from his bucket of scrap wood. I don’t remember if these were created in the same sitting, but these were pieces of wood he kept around, which I glued together to create these simple figurines. And then, of course, I went to town on them with markers.
Danny is wearing a jet pack and carrying a “pellet bomb gun.” Apparently it was important enough to me that he be wearing a hoodie that I glued a piece of wood to the back of his head and colored it blue.
Ultra Car is based off his earliest design, back when he was a million zillion colors. I know it’s super early because he’s not sentient yet. He doesn’t have eyeballs drawn into his headlights or a recognizable mouth. I decided he was alive sometime around fifth grade or so, so that dates this thing as earlier than fifth grade, somewhere between then and third grade when I created him. My favorite detail is the two wings drawn folded up underneath him. Those would pop out for “jet mode,” but otherwise stored.
Making these things is probably one of best memories I still have of my grandfather.
