Letting Go

Goodbye, Mr. Bacon.

The sassy strip of undercooked pork made his debut on The Artist’s Road in August, after he hijacked the summer vacation I was trying to enjoy with my family. This blog seemed a reasonable place for him to hang out, given the word “bacon” occurs here with sufficient frequency to justify its own category. In fact, a few months ago a commenter wrote this: “I really love your bacon blog, and that it occasionally touches on creativity! It’s a combo platter.”

Safe travels, old friend.

Mr. Bacon has visited here on and off with some frequency, most recently last week. But Mr. Bacon has a traveling jones. Yes, I said I was fine with him going on a walkabout. But, to my surprise, it has saddened me to see him have his own adventures, often without a shout-out to where he came from. Perhaps this is how I will feel when my children leave home and forget to write.

J.D. Salinger went to court to block his character Holden Caulfield from appearing in another book. While Mr. Bacon as a toy came from Think Geek, Mr. Bacon as a blog character was created here. But it seems his spirit is too large to be contained. I don’t own him anymore. I wish him the best of luck as he continues to make appearances on other writers’ blogs, and I will enjoy reading those adventures. But I will not be breathing further life into him here. It’s time for me to move on to other voices, other characters, other stories.

16 thoughts on “Letting Go

  1. Well, this is the last post I’ll read on THIS blog! Hrumph!

    No, seriously, I support you on this. There’s so much great discussion that goes on here, and Mr. Bacon can distract us from that. However, it was great to meet him and I hope he’ll stop by once in a while, when we least expect it. ;-D

    Godspeed, Mr. Bacon!

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  2. Noooooooooooooooo!!! Not Mr. Bacon! *sniff*. I am saddened to see him go. But, yah … you probably have a lot of other things to write about … that include the word bacon, of course! 😉

    Thanks for your awesome humor and levity Patrick … you (and Mr. Bacon) make me laugh and smile even when my day hadn’t been so special.

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    1. You know, Amy, given his traveling jones, he may end up in your neck of the woods at some point. Perhaps he’ll follow up on the interest you showed him awhile back and ask you out. But I know we’ve already established he’s not a good match for you, and you’ve got your own man now, so it’s his loss.

      You should smile every day even when it’s not so special, Amy, because you’re special.

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      1. You are very kind, Patrick, thank you! 🙂 Yes, Mr. Bacon snoozed, so now he will lose. I think perhaps he’ll wind up in LA, hamming it up for the cameras instead. The paparazzi will eat him up! 😉

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  3. mari

    Patrick. The Artist’s Road minus Mr. Bacon is indeed like a combo platter minus the, uh, bacon. I’m just wondering if you’re going to introduce us to another character…? Or am I hoping for too much…? Happy Weekend.

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    1. Like trying to order a dish without spam at the Monty Python spam cafe, right?

      I wouldn’t be surprised if someone surfaced at some point. With my focus the last year on creative nonfiction rather than fiction, I have fewer outlets to direct those voices in my head. (Oh dear, did I just share that with the world?)

      Great to hear from you again, Mari.

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  4. Awww. That’s kinda sad. No matter how far Mr. Bacon travels, I will always, always associate him with you and your blog. You invented his voice – and what a distinctive voice it is! It definitely took on a life of its own.

    P.S. Really enjoyed your pix in the previous post of Mr. B with his toy soldier brigade. Hilarious!

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  5. Suzanne

    Finalist: Best/Most Creative Character Sendoff. I will miss reading about his adventures, but really, he was a pig and hogged your blog, Patrick! 😉 Keep writing — I do love your blog and hope school is going well for you!

    Suzanne

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    1. Hello, Suzanne! Appropriate you should visit, since it is your comment I linked to in the post! Thank you for your kind words and encouragement, and I agree, Mr. Bacon was a bit of a hog. As for school, I just submitted my final writing packet of my first semester yesterday. One semester down, three to go. Very excited about my next Vermont residency over New Year’s, not as excited about what the weather will likely be like! 🙂

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