BIG BUFFALO, 1986-2012. RIP

26 Years ago, in the summer of 1986 my Dad took Ashley and I out to the midwest on a vacation. One of the places we went was Six Flags amusement park in Wisconsin. We drove all the way out there and had a blast. At Six Flags Dad let me play the "Ring Toss" game. You know the one - where you throw a small red ring at a huge number of glass bottles and if the ring lands over the neck of the glass bottle you win a prize. Anyone who's ever done it knows it's very, very hard and it's just a matter of chance and luck if you can get it. The odds are like 1 in a million that the ring will actually land on the neck of the bottle and stay there. The red rings are hard plastic and the bottles are glass. So inevitably the rings you throw at the bottle will just "ting, ting" bounce off the glass and go flying everywhere.
I threw a ton of rings that afternoon. Dad finally said:  "Ok that's enough." I begged him. Please, just a few more. He finally acquiesced and gave me $5 to throw more rings. Sure enough, astonishingly, I ringed a bottle. And thus, giant gargantuan behemoth big pink buffalo was won. Dad's jaw dropped "We can't take it! Where will we put it!?" I cried. Low and behold, Dad in his infinite love tied this monster buffalo to the roof of his Saab and we drove halfway across America with a giant pink buffalo strapped to the top of the car. He even covered it in plastic when it rained!

Today I had to say goodbye to Big Buffalo because there's just no room for him anymore. He's free now to roam the landfill in search of other stuffed animals who have lived a long and wonderful life.
26 years.
Big Buffalo, Rest In Peace.