Boo Boo Bear was a Hanna Barbera cartoon character on the Yogi Bear Show.
Described as an anthropomorphic bear cub in a bow tie he seemed to act like Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio, both were the consciences behind the main characters. Boo Boo tried to keep Yogi from going astray. He also tried usually unsuccessfully, to keep Yogi from getting into trouble with Ranger Smith. One of his most often quoted lines was, "But Yogi, Mr. Ranger isn't
gonna like this." Because we could never really be sure if Boo-Boo was a young bear with an exceptional IQ or simply an adult bear who was vertically challenged, his role was never quite clear.
I'm sure we have all had Boo Boos in our lives. Mine was Roy; he, like me, was a paperboy, and an altar boy. Roy was the eldest son in a family of six. He was a together kind of kid who leaned much more toward the conservative side of life. His brothers, Joe and Bobby were wild kids who were willing to do almost anything on a dare. They would crawl over the side of the bridge, balance on the I beams, and crawl to pigeon nests where they would retrieve baby pigeons while the mother pigeons attacked their heads.
Roy, on the other hand, was quiet, polite, and, had we had a Boy Scout troop, he would most assuredly have been an Eagle Scout. It was always Roy who would say things like, "Nicky, firecrackers are illegal, it's not a good idea to play with them." Sometimes, when I'd suggest something crazy like, "Let's take a sip of the altar wine," he'd say, "Nick, God is watching us."
Don't get me wrong, Roy was not a goodie two shoes, or a rat fink. He was just a nice, kind kid who cared about everyone.
One night when the snow had fallen enough to cover the long hill beside my house, the pack of kids who lived near me, our version of "Our Gang," decided to get out our sleds and try to make the best of the slick road until the ash trucks arrived. Those of us who were really daring would go to the very top, pick up a head of steam and fly down that hill. My neighbors parked their cars at the bottom of the hill, and it was always a challenge to go down that road four abreast, racing each other as fast as we could go while still avoiding the parked cars below.
That night four of us ran, hit the sleds with all of our kidly might and started down that hill. As we approached the cars, Roy began yelling out, "Hey, watch out for those cars! Hey, watch out." I swerved at the very last second and went to the immediate right of the parked car's wheel. Joe, on the other hand decided to go directly under the car. It was not something that any of us had ever thought to do before, but he laughed and headed right under the car. Keep in mind that we were all frozen like boards. Our pants were solid ice. Our gloves were frozen. Our eyebrows had icicles hanging off of them, and our chapped legs felt like, well chapped legs. As Joe emerged from under the car he was laughing, yelling, and telling us how great the experience was for him. He stood up to walk up the hill and his face covered with blood. He had hit the license plate holder and ripped a 122-stitch cut in his head, but he was so cold he hadn't even felt it. I remember his dad's used Chevy with four bald tires coming to the scene of the accident like a jet plane. We always listened to Roy just a little more intently after that. "Thank you Boo Boo."
(Nick Jacobs, international director for SunStone Consulting, LLC is known as an innovator and advocate for patient-centered care. With 22 years in health care management, he is author of the book, "Taking the Hell out of Healthcare" and the blog (AskaHospitalPresident.com).)
We all need a Boo Boo Bear
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