Me & My Potato

This month two people I know very well are turning 50: me, and Mr. Potato Head. What a long, strange trip it's been.

It's funny. I've known Mr. Potato Head almost my entire life - I think we first met when I was four - but I never realized we were the same age. Probably because from the beginning, I addressed him as "Mr." We were childhood friends - we played together almost every day for awhile - and I must say, he'd do almost anything for a laugh. Wear his glasses on top of his moustache, place his nose over his ears - the guy was a real cut-up. I was the same way: in school I was the class clown, yelling out wisecracks, tying kids shoelaces together, risking getting in trouble if it'd get a rise out of my classmates.. Sometimes I think that if only Mr. Potato Head were human and ambulatory, we would've made a good childhood comedy team, a pre-adolescent Abbot and Costello.

Yet in some ways, we were very different. Mr. Potato Head got married almost out of the box - to Mrs. Potato Head. True, they managed to keep their relationship fresh through the years by doing an inordinate amount of dress-up and role-playing, but still, their long-term union is a legend in toydom. Me, I spent years being a commitmentphobe, and even today I've yet to take the plunge down the aisle. There were years where it seemed like I changed partners as often as Mr. Potato Head changed eyebrows.

Perhaps that's why over the years we started to drift apart. My version is that I continued to grow while Mr. Potato Head stayed the same, but as a potato, he'd probably say that I strayed from my roots. In the 60s we had our most serious falling out. Even as I was becoming a hippie, rejecting commercialism, and gravitating toward a "natural" lifestyle, Mr. Potato Head traded in the body God gave him, for one constructed out of, of all things, plastic. As the years passed, I'd run into him every once in awhile - in a child's playrooom, in a Toys 'R Us - but I'd just pay him a passing glance, and move on.

Mr. Potato Head always seemed to be what other people wanted him to be. He'd switch hats - or noses or feet for that matter - on a whim. But every once in awhile, he'd surprise you and take a stand, like in 1987, when he gave up his beloved pipe. In my past I tried on a lot of hats too - conservative high school student, intellectual university student, cross-country hitch-hiker, spiritual seeker, drug-dropping hippie, political activistic, comedian - but the last few years my personality has seemed to solidify somewhat, and I'm starting to get what they call "set in my ways." You rarely got that feeling with Mr. Potato Head. He always tried to accomodate.

Mr. Potato Head was a childhood star, reaching the height of prominence when he was about two years old. His heyday lasted a few years, but by the time he was ten, and certainly fifteen, he was definitely on the decline. He has spent years living in obscurity, making enough money to keep in production, taking bit parts in "Toy Story" movies and briefly, acting as "spokesbud" for Burger King's launch of their revamped french fries, but aware that his best days were behind him.

On the contrary, I was a late-bloomer. I had careers as a street performer, comedy-magician, columnist, show writer, and radio commentator, and when each ended, or it was time to move on, I pursued the next thing. I believe I'm in the throes of doing it yet again, and it's beginning to look like, for better or worse, this is going to be a life-long process. In some ways, I admire Mr. Potato Head for always knowing who he was and what he wanted to be - a master of disguise. But in other ways, the process of starting over again, changing livelihoods to reflect who I am at that moment - has kept things continuously interesting.

Now it seems, we're both going through our versions of mid-life crises. I've taken to traveling to more and more exotic places as a way to cram in more experience, at the same time that I also feel maybe it's finally time to develop a non-laughable retirement plan, and find a Mrs. Potato Head to call my own. MPH, on the other hand, is trying to relaunch his career. For one thing, beginning July, he's going to star in his own synidicated daily newspaper comic strip. Even a potato doesn't want to vegetate.

So even though Mr. Potato Head and I diverged early in life, as we both reach the half-century mark, we find ourselves again in a similar place: appreciating the past, trying to build on our successes, and making time for the things we haven't yet done. This seems to be what fifty's about, whether you're animal or vegetable. The minerals have yet to be heard from.