Saving the World Before Bedtime

Eitan was a big fan of TV shows from a young age. He just seemed to know what was on. In preschool he loved Blue’s Clues. And in first grade it was The Powerpuff Girls. (I’m not sure how he discovered these shows, since supposedly we had limited TV watching time, but he did.) There were three kindergarten girls with superpowers, each with their theme colors: pink Blossom, the leader of the pack, blue Bubbles, and green Buttercup. The theme of the show was “Saving the world before bedtime.”

Eitan also was a big fan of video games, and going to a game arcade was a treat he sometimes did with friends, birthday parties, and his dad and siblings (I was not a fan of game arcades, the noise, the lights). Popular places to go were Fun and Games in Framingham and Good Time Emporium in Somerville. At the arcades you got tickets for winning various games, which you could then trade in for valuable prizes.

When Eitan was around 6½ or so he spent an afternoon at Good Time, cashed in his tickets, and came home wearing a pink Blossom Powerpuff Girl necklace. I admired that he didn’t care what peers might say – he thought Blossom was cool, so wearing a Blossom necklace was cool. He loved that necklace, and wore it daily for months, till it got lost when he took it off for some kind of gym activity. He still remained a fan for some time, and my folks even gave him The Powerpuff Girls board game (which now sells for $74.95 on Amazon!!! Does that make it vintage?), a game we continued to play for years.

I was pleased to find this picture documenting his Powerpuff stage on his 7th birthday, in 2001.