The Saga of Flat Stanley Comes to an End

As you may recall from my earlier blogs, I received a Flat Stanley in the mail from a  grandson of my sister, Jo Ann Presley. Jackson Dodson is in the 2nd grade at Sacred Heart in Anniston, Alabama. His class read the book Flat Stanley written by Jeff Brown. The book’s story is about a young boy named Stanley who is accidentally squished “as flat as a pancake” when a bulletin board falls on him. Stanley is very, very flat but otherwise fine. The book tells us of Stanley’s adventures as a flat person. He is able to slide under doors and even fold himself up small enough to fit into an envelope, thus enabling him to be mailed to exciting places for visits. With that thought in mind, Jackson made his own Flat Stanley and which he mailed to me in early November. He requested that Stanley travel with me, and asked that I report back on Stanley’s travels. The 2nd grade class would track Stanley’s travels on a wall map in their classroom. What Jackson did not know was that I had set the goal of traveling to all 50-states in one year to play golf. His timing was was perfect.

Julie & I had the opportunity to visit the Sacred Heart 2nd grade class as we traveled through Anniston last month. I promised to send Flat Stanley back after I returned home. Jackson received 4-reports and 86-pictures from me over the past 5-months that illustrated the many places Stanley has visited. A final report was sent back on 30 April, in time for the class to map his latest adventures before the school year ends.

As you would expect, Flat Stanley visited a number of golf courses. He did find the time to experience a number of other items as you can see in the listing below:

• visited 26 states
• played on 28 golf courses
• walked on 3 beaches (Oahu, Oregon, Delaware)
• saw 2 oceans (Atlantic & Pacific)
• drove 4 large pieces of John Deere equipment
• traveled through 3 airports (San Francisco, Denver, Chicago)
• visited 2 race tracks (Churchill Downs, Indy 500)
• rode across 2 famous bridges (Golden Gate, Chesapeake Bay)
• played the slots on the Las Vegas strip
• walked on lava fields in Utah and flew over active volcanoes in Hawaii
• dropped in on the Special Operations Forces at Fort Bragg
• ate Coca-Cola cake in Charleston & caramel apples in Queenstown
• climbed the California redwood trees
• toured Buffalo Bill Cody’s homestead

North Shore beach on Oahu

Helicopter ride over volcanoes on the Big Island

Eating caramel apples in Queenstown

Driving his favorite big green tractor

I suspect there was more than one person who wondered what I was doing over the past few months when I stopped to take pictures. It has been interesting to note the large number of people who knew of Flat Stanley and have done the same thing for their kids or grandkids in the past. It has been fun to travel with Flat Stanley, especially when we visited the 2nd grade class and were peppered with all of their questions. I suspect Flat Stanley had a nice nap after his return to Anniston; naturally he arrived folded up in an envelope in the same manner described in the book.

Visiting Churchill Downs

Caden Johnson, Jackson Dodson & Flat Stanley