Oh, yeah, about that bear...
That's Milhouse, the Christmas Polar Bear. He's not on the street, he's standing on what used to be my general-purpose utility flatcar. It has been seen in other shots carrying trucks, rocket ships, etc. Milhouse has made it his permanent home, with the help of my wife. He's literally glued to the thing.
What happened was, last year I got a call from a friend (I'll call him "John") needing some help with some S gauge stuff. He was working with the Train Collector's Association, putting together a large multi-guage holiday display at the Nixon Library. He'd never worked with S gauge much, and was having trouble getting the S gauge loop to work. When he told me they were running a brand-new set from S Helper Service, I knew something unusual was going on because you just don't normally have trouble with SHS product. It's very reliable. Anyway, John was panicked because the display was due to open the next night, and he couldn't get the loco to work smoothly. Also, the caboose kept derailing.
When I got there, after fixing the problems (which weren't the fault of the equipment), I noticed the SHS consist had no flatcar. I thought that was a little boring. I'd brought my GPU flat with me to wipe the track. It has a track wiper fitted into the center sill (see pic below) and I wanted to experiment with it on the display. The car is diecast metal, so it's plenty heavy enough to run empty, which I did. It was added to the consist right behind the loco. John invited us to the big "premier" of the display the next night, and I was going to pick the car up the next day after the display closed for the day. The Grand Opening was extremely crowded, though, and I couldn't get to the S loop, which was about 8 feet off the ground. So, I decided to just let my flatcar run with the train for the duration of the display; a seven week, 5-days-a-week marathon. 350 hours of running time. I figured it would be a great endurance test for the Ace trucks on the car. It would also be interesting to see how well the wiper worked over a long run. I pointed the car out to John, letting him know it belonged to me, and informed him of my plan. "Ok. We'll take good care of it!" he said.
A couple weeks later, I saw John and asked if he'd had any more S troubles. "No! That S stuff works great!" I asked about the track wiper under the flatcar, was it keeping the track clean? "Oh yeah! I never have to clean the S gauge line at all! How does it stay clean like that?" I reminded him about the wiper. "Well, it sure WORKS!" With all those 3-rail lines to keep clean (0 and Standard gauges) John was very glad to have one fewer line of track to clean at the end of every week.
Then, just to "make things perfectly clear", I reminded John that the flatcar wasn't part of the SHS set, it was my personal addition to the display. He looked a little worried. "Uh-oh. You're gonna hate me!" Now, why would I hate you, John? "Well, I thought the empty flat was kinda boring, so I glued a Christmas ornament to it. A polar bear." Is the polar bear 1/64th scale, John? "Uh, I dunno, probably not. But the glue is water based!" Oh well, I told him not to worry about it, I'd just pop the bear off the car and do whatever touch-up was needed. No biggie.
Except that, when I got the car back after Christmas, my wife, having a more acute sense of occasion than I, insisted the bear stay on the car. "It's a keepsake! Our special 2006 car!" Hafta admit, she's right.
Now I gotta make a new GPU flat, since Milhouse has hijacked the old one. Who's gonna argue with a bear that big?
Since then, I've been told that said polar bear is in fact a trademark for some company. I don't know what company, but apparently they got people's attention by displaying huge fiberglass sculptures of this polar bear--scarf and all--at various locations. The sculptures were bigger than life-size, so who knows? Milhouse may just be 1/64 scale. In any case, a fiberglass sculpture of a company logo makes a lot more sense as a load than a live polar bear does.
So, I'm happy.