DINOSAUR BOB
BELOVED TOY DINOSAUR
Date missing: Jan. 13, 2005
From: O’Hare International Airport
DOB: Unknown
Eyes: Blue
Height: 4.5 inches
Weight: 1 ounce
Hair: None
If you have information, go to www.dinosaurbob.com
Somewhere, Dinosaur Bob is smiling.
Of course he’s smiling. His little plastic face is molded into a permanent grin. But if Bob could, he’d be crying. Dinosaur Bob is lost.
The tiny green plastic dinosaur is the pride and joy of Mindy and Carl Jensen of Geneva. Through the years, he has been their constant companion on vacations to Yosemite, Belize and British Columbia. They have hundreds of photos of him–grouting bathroom tile, wearing his seat belt on a plane as he patiently awaited takeoff, exploring the flora of the Garfield Park Conservatory, perched on a toilet seat. They even built him his own Web page (www.dinosaurbob.com).
He was the garden gnome they never had.
But last month their world was turned upside down when Dinosaur Bob vanished en route to a vacation in Hawaii. And the Jensens are desperate. So desperate, they contacted Q.
“I want everybody to know that Dinosaur Bob is missing and has a good loving home to come home to,” Mindy said. “He didn’t run away.”
Bob, come home
Is this dinosaur in the toy box of someone you know? Is he ancient history? The Jensens are looking for the missing link that will bring their traveling companion back.
Mindy Jensen sounded a little like a distraught mom whose child had just disappeared.
“We are saddened by the loss of Dinosaur Bob,” she said. “We hope that he will be returned to us.”
She was talking about a small plastic dinosaur that had vanished a couple of weeks earlier, leaving a huge hole in her and husband Carl’s lives.
“He was very helpful around the house,” Mindy said of Dinosaur Bob. “Did you see [photos of] him helping grout the bathroom? He was very instrumental in helping us remodel our house.”
The Jensens are offering a reward–no questions asked–for Bob’s return. There’s $100 in it for the finder, or $250 for the finder’s favorite charity.
Bob was one of Carl’s childhood toys in the mid-’80s and sat atop his dresser “for a thousand years,” said Mindy.
Not much more is known of Bob’s origin, although he did sport a “Made in Korea” sticker on one foot.
Christopher Byrne, a toy expert who tests and reviews toys at www.thetoyguy.com, looked over Bob’s photos and believes “it’s just a generic dinosaur that’s similar to many of the things that are made every year and that I see by the ton at the Hong Kong toy show.”
And Tim Walsh, author of “The Playmakers: Amazing Origins of Timeless Toys” (Keys Publishing, 2004), checked around and couldn’t identify Bob either.
A little more certain are the circumstances of his disappearance.
The Jensen family–that would be Carl, Mindy and Dinosaur Bob–got to O’Hare at 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 13 for a flight to Los Angeles. She remembers tucking Bob inside Carl’s green hat in the predawn darkness. That was the last time they saw him.
“We don’t remember putting the hat in our backpack or putting it in the car,” she said.
They realized he was gone minutes after their flight from Los Angeles to Hawaii took off.
“It’s kind of hard to have a bad time in Hawaii,” Mindy said, “but it certainly made the plane trip out there suck.” They held on to a narrow hope that Bob somehow got left in their car.
“When we got back [to O’Hare], we rushed out to the car and pulled everything out. And there was no Dinosaur Bob. No hat. It was very, very sad.”
The Jensens have filed lost-and-found reports not only at O’Hare and at LAX but also with United Airlines, police and Transportation Security Administration personnel in a half-dozen cities where their plane subsequently flew. They’ve e-mailed all their friends and family members, asking them to pass on the news of Bob’s disappearance. Nothing.
They also have made fruitless searches on Google and eBay. Yes, if the unthinkable has occurred and Bob is history, they’d settle for his twin.
“I have no idea where he could be,” Mindy said. “Chicago, L.A., anywhere in the world.”
Dinosaur Bob is described as a wee fellow, only 4 or 5 inches in height. His legs are movable, allowing him to sit or stand. If you pinch his tiny green shoulders, his arms open to grasp things. When last seen he was wearing a white sweater–yes, you read it right–that Mindy knitted for him.
“We hope that somebody will find him and say, `Oh look, someone loved him enough to knit him a sweater. Maybe somebody misses him.'”
So all the Jensens have now are their photographs, their memories.
And, of course, the tiny matching scarf that went with the sweater Bob was wearing.
If you know where Dinosaur Bob is–or where his double might be found–contact the Jensens through www.dinosaurbob.com.
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On the radio
Kathy & Judy wonder what sort of emotional baggage–as in items, not feelings–you carry with you on vacation. Join the conversation between 9 a.m. and noon Monday. Tune in WGN-AM 720.
