How Gum Girl came to be

GUM GIRL - BARBIE and KEN

Both Hannah and Sarah had a massive collection of BARBIE DOLLS. Hannah inherited several from her big sister, and added dozens more, it seemed to the collection. So we weren’t strangers to BARGIE and KEN dolls. Barbie and Ken were talked to, and of course, they “talked back”. There were many real conversations to be heard if you stopped by the door of either bedroom when the girls were playing with them. So it was only natural for Daddy to invent a story about the two dolls named BARBIE and KEN. Here it is…

“Once upon a pie…, I mean, once upon a time….BARBIE and KEN decided to take a ride in Ken’s new Jeep. “Oh, Ken,” cried Barbie….”I can’t wait to go for a ride with you in your new Jeep. I love the color! Thanks for choosing PINK!” And, pink it was. Poor ken was so “hen pecked” by Barbie, he would have done anything to please her. “Ok, Barbie”, Ken said. “I think I’ll take us into the woods and go ‘off-roading’ where we can test out our 4 wheel drive!” “Oh, Ken,” Barbie bubbled….”this is so much fun!”

So, off they went in Ken’s fully equipped Jeep C-Jay. It was an “inline” 6 cylinder motor with a heavy duty winch mounted on the front bumper. Ken almost hoped they would get “stuck” so that he could show Barbie how he could attach the winch cable to a nearby tree and “pull” the Jeep out effortlessly. Ken would get his wish this day, and more, much more

As they started off on their journey that day, Barbie was singing. She was so happy to be outside in the open air, instead of resting inside one of Hannah’s “Barbie boxes” where she slept, and sometimes stayed for days at a time.

It was a bright and sunny afternoon as the pink C-Jay bounced and lurched along a fence row in a farmer’s field. Barbie stopped singing long enough to say to Ken, “Ken, can you slow down a little, I’m getting scared!” And, of course Ken immediately took his foot off the accelerator, down shifted and brought the speed down to under 20 mph. He was always quick to do whatever Barbie asked him to do…what a gentleman he was!

A little later Ken got an idea. He said to Barbie, “Barbie, would you like to see how this Jeep can go ‘anywhere’, and never get stuck?” Barbie know where Ken was going with this, so she said, “Ken, I’m sure the Jeep can get out of the mud, or a ditch, but let’s not take any chances…we’re pretty far from home out here, you know.”

But Ken was on a mission, now. He wanted to demonstrate to Barbie how invincible the Jeep was. He would show Barbie a thing or two…

Just ahead the farmer’s field ended, and the terrain turned into a rolling and hilly area. Up and down they went, with Barbie alternatively laughing and screaming, when Ken hit a particularly big bump. Then, Ken decided to show Barbie a couple of old abandoned wells he had found. When they came closer to the two deep circular shafts, Barbie yelled, “Stop, Ken, stop! Don’t go any closer! Please!” But it was too late, as Ken applied the brakes, his right foot slipped off the pedel and onto the accelerator….the Jeep sped forward until Ken replaced his foot on the brake pedel. By that time, the front wheels of the jeep were already sliding into the well…and, down, down, they slid…it was a good thing that they were both securely buckled in, and that Ken’s Jeep was equipped with a “roll bar” so they didn’t fall out, or hit their heads on the walls of the deep abandoned well.

When they finally came to a stop, Ken reached for the light switchs, and turned on both the heaelights, and the spot lights mounted on the roll bar overhead. But all Barbie could see was the damp brown walls and the floor of the well around them. They were surrounded by almost vertical walls, with nothing to allow for climbing up or out! Barbie yelled, “Ken, get us out of here!” And Ken, trying to be calm, said, “Ok Barbie, relax, we’ll be ok…I’ll find a way out.” But Ken’s heart (it was a plastic heart) sank when he looked around and found no way out.

Ken thought about the heavy duty winch attached to the front of the Jeep, but knew that there was nothing nearby where it might attach. Ken also knew they were more than 30 feet below the surface and that climbing up the slippery walls would be impossible.

So, Ken broke the news gently to Barbie, who was nearly inconsolable. She was now crying, “I’ll never see Hannah and Sarah again!” But, Ken was more optimistic than that. “If only I could signal someone with my “walkie-talkie””, he said. “You have a walkie-talkie with you?” yelled Barbie. “Of course”, he said, “this Jeep is equipped with everything!” So Ken began to chant, “May-day, may-day” into the hand held plastic radio. But, no one responded. No one seemed to hear….another half hour went by, and Ken kept trying to get a response.

Just as Barbie began sobbing again…they both heard a female voice coming from above. When they looked up, they saw nothing. In a few minutes, they heard the voice again. “Can you hear me?” called the girl. “Can you hear me?” “Yes, we hear you!” Ken cried out….”We hear you” Barbie yelled. But they still saw nothing at the top of the well-shaft.

But then, they saw the head of a dog looking down at them! There were two dogs, in fact. One was black and one was red….Lightfoot and Fogey had found them…but how could two dogs get them out of their prediciment? Just then a little red haired girl appeared along side the dogs. “Hey”, she yelled, “How’d you get down there?” “It’s a long story”, Ken yelled back…can you get help to pull us up out of here?

The little girl didn’t respond, but reached into her pocked to pulled out something that looked like a big packed of chewing gum, a really big pack of gum. As Barbie and Ken watched the little girl unfolded what seemed like dozens of sticks of gum and stuffed them into her mouth! Before long, she had a softball sized “wad” of gum inside her mouth…she chewed and chewed, until she was satisfied it was “ready”.

Ken and Barbie were astonished when the girl began to “reel out” a long string of gum from her mouth, which she lowered down into the shaft as she continued chewing. Before long, this cord of gum reached the Jeep. Ken knew what to do. He tied the end of the “gum-cable” to the front of his Jeep, around the winch. As the girl with the gum watched Ken turned on the winch and the Jeep slowly crept up the side of the shaft toward the light. The girl had secured the top end of the gum-line to a tree near the well.

Finally, the front of the Jeep appeared and Barbie and Ken could drive the vehicle away from the well. They were so relieved and so happy! They jumped out and hugged the little girl who had come to their rescue. Ken said, “Little girl, we owe you our lives! If you hadn’t come along we would still be trapped down there with no one to help us.” Then Barbie said, “What’s your name, anyway?” The shy little girl smiled and put in a fresh stick of gum…chewing, she said, “Well, most people call me…GUM GIRL!”

And, that was the end of the story...