Gather around and I’ll tell you the story about the very famous Cowboy who had Cashew for a head. According to the tag that he came with, “Mom” bought him in Miami Beach back in 1940s. Well, actually, I am reading into it. Mom “brought” him from Florida. We don’t know if the person’s Mom just found him and felt sorry for him and let him hitch a ride or what. At any rate, someone had the strange idea that they should make a cowboy doll, since when tourists think of Miami, cowboys are the very first thing they think about.
Whoever made him in around 1940 didn’t have the money to buy a porcelain or wooden head from the store, so they just found a cashew nut lying around and used it. The alternate story, and the one which I think might be preferable, is that someone found an unusual cashew that looked like a head. Instead of being the person who found the Clint Eastwood Potato and just letting it speak for itself, they had to hammer the message in our heads and make a body for it, just so we would really be sure that we understood it looked like a head.
At any rate, at some point in time, Jeanne, who has a vintage shop on the internet, called VintageStoreFront found him toddling her way, and she offered it for sale. A few folks decided it was the darnedest thing they had ever seen, and they Twittered it and Facebooked it around the web.Through the process, I met some gals on Twitter who thought he was just as odd, yet strangely endearing, as I did. Even though Cashew Nut Head Cowboy sold, he has been not far from our conscious thoughts since July 30th. @sewzinski (who makes some pretty awesome hand embroidered wallets, by the way), thought that myself and @chrissyjensen “Need to get ahold of urban outfitters. They have macrame owls when they should have nutheaded cowboys.” We wondered for awhile, since he sold so quickly, if he was happy in his new home. I guess there was no way to really know unless the buyer was also on Twitter and joined in on the dialogue.
The whole conversation started again when she thought of me, as she saw buckeyes on her walk. I asked Jeanne if she had received any letters from the Nuthead about his wellbeing and she said no. We just all hope he is very happy. @sewzinski wonders if his preference for Endustis being satisfied, and @chrissyjensen suggested we tweet with a location so we might be able to create a local trend in the topic.
For whatever reason, we are now tagging our Cowboy Nuthead conversations on twitter with #cowboynuthead. You can too!
Jeanne says: “Thanks for keeping him alive in everybody’s minds and hearts!”
