I have mentioned that in the past, Quentin and I sat down and named – and labelled on their butts – bears in my collection from GoodWill. There were, dontcha know, the bears that looked so cute and so needing of a home they just had to be real. Actually, they had all sorts of looks.

Yesterday we pulled stuff off the shelves in the laundry room because it was getting really crowded in there, not to mention a little linty. I saw a small fuzzy foot and thought it was a dog chew toy; it was not – it was a bear from the collection and my daughter-in-law looked at his butt and said, “It’s Cagney.”

I thought that we must have talked about him looking like George M. Cohan or a gangster . . . You dirty rat. I thought about Quentin and me sitting there naming them as I pulled more stuff off the top shelf. Later, when things were trashed or reshelved, I picked up Cagney to put him somewhere safe.

Only, when I looked at his face, I thought, hmmmm, why did we think he looked like James Cagney? I turned him upside down and on his butt was written Cagey. Cagey? What the Heck? Here I was getting all sentimental about a stuffed animal when I have been working on telling myself they are nothing more than cloth and stuffing. I would perhaps have said, “Toss him,” had she not misread Cagey’s name as Cagney.

I remember when we always watched Yankee Doodle Dandy on the Fourth of July . . . and Quentin once impersonated Cagney impersonating Cohan and dancing up the wall in a fancy turn. No way could I toss Cagney.

Then I stopped in my steps. That Cagey bear had managed to save his little skin (cloth) by bear magic. His name did fit . . . and how can something fit something that isn’t real? Ack.

Anyway here is the end of the story . . . plus a picture of three pals.