The Pooh on Christopher Robin Movie

100 Acre Woodlums

Christopher Robin: The Man, The Boy, The Books, The Blue Ray          11-12-18

I had a chance to see this terrific (to me) movie the other evening with our Grandson Willyum Goodfellow, and he quite enjoyed it too, I cried.

You see, I have a long association with the author A.A.Milne, his books and characters, going back to when I was very young; Pooh Bear was magic.

The movie seems to be about the ADULT Christopher Robin who seems to have lost himself in his Adult-hood; I was going to say Adultery as he’s forsaken his innocent youth and his playmates for the allure of tedious work and he’s on the cusp of losing his wife and daughter into the bargain as he’s a slave to the trade.

The REAL Christopher Robin grew right chuffed with his association in his father’s books and turned his back on all of them as he was forever seen as ‘that’ Boy-child through adulthood. I don’t think that’s so bad, I mean, look at me! For the most part I loved my youth, and even tho I grew older, parts of me becoming Apple-Art, thanks to the Music I involved my life with, I simply NEVER grew UP!

I found the movie reinvigorating and I say that as my original discovery of Winnie the Pooh and his posse was invigorating and this retelling put the bloom back on the Rose, the Haycorns on the plate and the Hunny in the pot. It was no less than Pooh himself that brought Christopher Robin his youth, it had been there all the time waiting for him but Pooh brought it in his own humble Bear-of-little-brain way.

There’s some wisdom in that stuffed old head that belies being a stuffed toy.

I always had an affinity for Pooh stories as living with my Uncle Les (Fudd) and Aunt Laurel (Mrs Potts..for the pottery she made)  cousin Wendy and I had our own 100 acre wood of a sort at the bottom of Royal Oak Avenue (Burnaby) by Deer Lake adjacent to the then Oakalla Prison Farm (Paul Newman was conspicuous in his absence).

In the movie, and in Shepard’s classic illustrations from the books, all the characters seem to live in hollow trees with doors, and we too had our own hollow tree, though not with a door, one had to crawl through the opening in front to gain entrance and see just who might be at home.

Behind that edifice stood a giant Cottonwood, maybe 100 feet tall, and one day, being the idiot child in residence, I decided to climb it to the top and carve my initials there and just as I was dotting the ‘i’ I was caught up a tree for real as my long suffering Aunt discovered me, which called for a rapid descent though not enough to start a fire, tho it was slowed by the fact that many of the branches I used to climb up, had broken off, so that descent became a bit of a stretch to say the least.

There were lots of animals around too, Rabbits, Owls, and Racoons, but no Kangaroos, but once when I was 3 or 4 there was a bear, but not a friendly Pooh bear, a Black Bear that could make YOU Pooh by looking at you, but it went away. I guess that was to be expected as we lived on a Game Reserve.

For more on that see the semi-biographical “Tinker-Boy and the BIG Ride: A Kidsmas Tale for All Seasons”

I have a pretty fair library of Milnes books and cherish them; instant return to a simpler time. I also possess a copy of Ann Thwaite’s book ‘The Brilliant Career of Winnie the Pooh’ in which are photos of all the original stuffed animals that were the basis for the stories, great time pieces!

POP**** goes the Pooh songs!

Altho long considered a children’s icon, Pooh is such an endearing character, it would seem there’s a little more child in a lot of us as he’s been immortalized by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (House at Pooh Corner) and Kenny Loggins (Return to Pooh Corner) showing fealty to the fuzzy one.

 Probably my favorite non-Pooh Milne effort is ‘The Four Friends’ from the ‘When We Were Very Young’ collection, it’s HOWL-arious in its innocence, check it out, it may take years off you!

 https://soundcloud.com/user-467057850/dont-lose-your-pooh

                                                                                    RayMan

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