Happy Birfday Smokey the Bear

Smokey the Bear quietly celebrated his 80th birthday this week. I can't say I've really thought about ol' Smokey too much recently, but one of my first memories of school as a young child is being in a big semi-dark auditorium, filled with those thin-slatted slightly-curved wooden seats that had a hinge, and Smokey the Bear rolling up on the stage; after a whirlwind blur of a drunken buzz I'd never felt before I found myself in possession of a plastic bag to pick litter up with - thanks, really, - a Husky pencil destined to be splattered in two across the forehead of a kid a few grades above me on the afternoon school bus ride home, and a ruler that even to a 6 year-old read as "insanely flammable to the point of comedic irony".

Here's to another 80, Smokey!