I was expecting a bigger reaction when I took my two-year-old daughter inside the belly of a 60-foot-long sperm whale named Conny.
To be clear, she didn’t like it.
But, she was still reeling from the horror of being approached by Mr. Peanut in front of Oscar Meyer’s Weinermobile so it’s understandable that it jarred her moving so suddenly from broad daylight into the sort of darkness you’d expect inside a 60-foot whale’s belly.
She much preferred the whale replica’s outside where she happily pretended to brush his teeth.
I told her she was brushing the teeth of the largest toothed-animal in the world but that didn’t impress her nearly as much as the gravel she was busy forcing into his mouth.
Poets and spiritualists encourage us to view life through the eyes of the child. Days like this must seem strange when there’s a man-sized peanut twirling a cane between a 60-foot whale and an RV-sized hot dog.
Especially when you think that dancing peanut is a snowman because he’s wearing a top hat.
Though she didn’t care for being inside the whale’s belly, Jonah and Pinnochio teach us that is where transformative experiences happen.
This was a transformational moment for me. It wasn’t my first time inside Conny.
In fact, I used to run through him screaming and laughing as loud as I could with my two brothers, which Mom encouraged to help us burn off energy after the car ride to The Children’s Museum in West Hartford.
Whales have a special place in Connecticut-born hearts. Fudgie the Whale (a popular ice cream cake from Carvel) was as big a presence in my childhood as Mickey Mouse or Big Bird.
And, of course, we had The Hartford Whalers: a National Hockey League team that was ripped away from us in 1997 even after the people rallied together to meet the villainous owner’s insanely high demands to save it.
Peter Karmanos was his name. I didn’t have to Google it because he was nefarious for a brief blip in the 1990s before fizzling out, much like David Koresh or Kevin Federline.
The Whalers were named after the whale hunters who made New England and early America’s economy strong. The areas from Nantucket down to the Connecticut shore were once considered the Saudi Arabia of whale oil.
Whaling had such a big impact on Connecticut that we named the sperm whale our state animal, which is why Conny has been sitting outside The Children’s Museum for over 40 years as its most popular exhibit.
Looking at rescued Guinea Pigs and fossils is cool but it will never match the joy in my heart from hearing my own voice echo back from inside a whale.
I hope my kids learn to appreciate that same joy someday but the museum’s future is unclear.
The land’s owner (high-end prep school Kingswood Oxford) is publicly nudging the museum to vacate the valuable property directly across from a Whole Foods and the much-hyped Blue Back Square development.
It doesn’t take an archeologist to unearth the meaning when the school says the property sale, “would advance our strategic goals.”
I read that in The Hartford Courant, a paper far too familiar with the damage that often follows “strategic goals.”
Whalers are back in Connecticut but this time the creatures they’re looking to slowly bleed dry and strip for parts are our flagship enterprises.
In just the past month impassioned cries for help have sprung out from our capital city’s largest employer and from our newspaper of record (which holds the remarkable distinction of being the country’s longest continuously published newspaper).
Insurance company The Hartford fended off an unsolicited acquisition attempt from global insurer Chubb who released a statement saying it is, “disappointed that The Hartford chose not to engage in discussions regarding a strategic business combination.”
The bloodied water attracted other, more powerful hunters, like Allianz and Berkshire Hathaway.
Whalers keep firing as many harpoons as it takes to get the job done.
Meanwhile, The Hartford Courant is leaning on the legislature to fend off a hostile takeover by Alden Global Capital, a “cost-cutting hedge fund.” This comes AFTER shuttering their iconic newsroom and headquarters.
Economic whalers would be smart to learn the lessons of their far-manlier sea-faring predecessors: over-hunting in the name of profit has a drastic impact on once-vibrant areas and creates a cascade of unintended consequences.
Though it may take longer than it should (the United States didn’t outlaw whaling until 1971, just 5 years before Conny was built), the public will eventually catch on and rise up to defend our beautiful majestic creatures from an excess of greed. Whichever ones are left, at least.
Change is always jarring. Sea-faring whalers were the financial backbone of our colonies and now they’re mere relics. Hartford was a hockey town until it wasn’t. Insurance was its bread and butter when I came of age though that is slowly melting away.
As Jonah and Pinnochio taught us: transformative change comes from the belly of the beast. Though as my daughter knows, it’s dark inside.
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