It stood about 12 inches high and was about 8 inches wide. It was made of ceramic, colored dark brown and light orange, and hollowed out on the inside. To any sensible person, this hideous “thing” should have been thrown out in the trash and in a landfill.

And that’s exactly where I picked it up.

I was 6 years old in 1974 and scavenging around (or whatever you called hikes back then) with my cousin Doug Burnett at our Romanian picnic in Hazel Park, MI, at Transylvania Park — seriously, that’s what it was called.

Like any 6-year-old boy I was crawling around in a bunch of discarded trash in a wooded area just outside the park. Wow — look at this old bottle…I tossed it away. Here’s an old broken record…I tossed that away. Look at this Honus Wagner 1909 T206 baseball card….Worthless piece of crap. I tossed it away.

Next, I saw something golden. It was shining in the hot sun and almost had angelic music coming from it meant only for my ears. It stared at me and spoke softly through its ceramic swan beak: “Tommy, take me home.”

It was the ugliest ceramic swan that you’ve ever seen. But I grabbed it like it was the Stanley Cup and ran with my cousin Doug to my mom, dad, and the whole Varcie clan back to our picnic tables. Of all prized possessions that someone could get in life, this was it.

It was so damn ugly that everyone laughed when I brought it back. It was the perfect epitome of a swan song. I’m sure in its ceramic, table ornament life heyday, it adorned thousands of people. It brought smiles to the faces of children, and laughter and joy to the hearts of adults. Tiny mites gleefully played on The Swan like it was a playground Jungle Jim and….Ok, I’m getting carried away.

Back to Transylvania Park when I had my grand entrance with The Swan. I charged back to the picnic tables and thrust The Swan high in the air like it was Thor’s mighty hammer. My dad, Chuck Varcie, grabbed The Swan, examined it, and laughed. My mom, Judy, laughing, said, “Chuck, don’t even think about letting Tommy take that home. Doug should have that.”

Doug was a few years older than me and he was trying to claim rights on this newly found glowing, vintage treasure. I thought all 26 pounds of me could take him on if it came down to that. The Swan was my new best friend.

The Swan remained on display at the picnic on a wooden table. One by one, the family members looked at it, laughed at it like it was the Ugly Duckling, or Swanling, or whatever. People picked it up, examined it’s ugly, glazed ceramic features, and laughed at the quarter-sized chip off the base of it.

Little did anyone know that this Swan rescued from a garbage heap, would become a Varcie family heirloom and the butt of jokes for the next 10 years.

It’s not the first time that I picked up some ugly, discarded thing when I was in my younger days. While at Houghton Lake, MI, in 1975 I scooped up a dead Northern Pike from the lake while nearly falling into the water from our 20-foot aluminum fishing boat. I carried that thing around in a net on the grounds of Songer’s Log Cabins Resort for 2 days before my mom and dad begged me to get rid of it.

Now, my dad was the family jokester and a quick thinker. I’m sure that he gave all past and modern-day comedians all of their material. He was already coming up with a scheme on what to do with The Swan. I know now what he was thinking.

“Ok — my wife, Judy, doesn’t want Tommy to take The Swan home. So how do I take this hilarious moment in time and stretch it out to last years? I know….I give it to my sister Margie without her ever knowing and see if she gives it back.” That’s what he was thinking.

Margie (Varcie) Couture-Burnett was just about as funny as my dad. She was always laughing, telling fun stories, and scheming up funny material.

So as the picnic wrapped up and Aunt Margie loaded her car, my dad grabbed The Swan and sneakily hid it in one of their baskets in her trunk. The Swan was going for a ride!

Genious!

I remember my mom and dad waving and laughing as Aunt Margie and my cousins drove away.

But we’d be getting it back soon enough.

It was several months later when we visited Aunt Margie and our cousins Doug, Scott, and Nancy. As we were leaving, Margie helped us pack up my dad’s Clark W. Griswold station wagon that came straight out of the National Lampoon’s Vacation movie. As my dad backed the car slowly out of the driveway, Margie gleefully tapped the trunk, laughed, and watched as we drove away. We got home and my dad opened the trunk to begin unpacking.

In a box was The Swan.

It’s started.

Now, the The Swan exchange didn’t happen every time my dad and Margie visited each other. The other person got it back when they least expected it.

Once while Margie and the cousins were at our house in Garden City, MI, my dad ran out to Margie’s car when no one was looking and put The Swan underneath the driver’s side seat. It sat there for almost a year. She only found it when she went to sell that car. As she was cleaning it out, she found it.

The next Christmas while we were at my Aunt Cathy (Varcie) Stambouly’s house, I received a beautifully wrapped present from my Aunt Margie. Talking to my mom recently about it, she said the gift was packaged so perfectly, that everyone thought it was professionally wrapped from a department store.

I tore it open to find The Swan.

This continued for years. There was no warning when it would be given. But it was now a game to see who came up with the best plan to give it away.

I’ll rank the top two from the pages of The Swan giveaway history book, if there was such a thing.

Second Place: Let’s Make a Deal If the Price is Right

My mom and dad hosted many theme and costume parties in the 1970s and 1980s. I was young, but I remember they were fun and wild and a lot of drinking and laughs were always involved. But on one occasion, my dad played as a game show host. He built a makeshift studio in their finished basement and created the set for his own game show, “Let’s Make a Deal If the Price is Right.” It was a hilarious attempt at combining two of the most popular game shows shown on network TV at the time.

He hung three white curtains — numbered in marker 1, 2, and 3 – in the basement and gag prizes were behind each. The adults at the party drew names from a hat to see who would be the next contestant. As the game show host, my dad would joke and banter with the selected contestant, ask who they were, where they were from like he didn’t know them. After some prodding from my dad, the person would eventually pick their curtain and then receive a hilarious prize that my dad bought from a gag gift store.

On the final contestant draw for the night, Margie’s name was drawn from the hat. She didn’t realize it, but every name in the hat this time had Margie’s name on it. She was ecstatic, screaming, “I won! I won!” Everyone laughed hysterically at her enthusiasm.

Game show host Chuck Varcie, wearing his best 1970s wide-collared, plaid game show host jacket joked with his sister Margie. He bantered with her. This is where the game show became real. This was the moment for both of them. Hollywood was beckoning my dad; Hawaii and a free all-expense paid trip for my Aunt Margie was supposedly behind one of those curtains.

Would it be curtain #1, curtain #2, or curtain #3?

“Curtain number 2, Chuck,” she said. “I’m going with curtain number 2.”

He went behind the curtain and grabbed the prize from my brother, John, and I. He handed her a wrapped box that had a ribbon on it. Margie tore into it, gouging out the box’s cardboard flesh with her fingertips until she hit solid, glazed ceramic.

The Swan.

First Place: The Class Reunion Speech

My dad was a smart guy and well-liked at Pershing High School in Detroit. He was class Valedictorian, Editor of the High School Yearbook, and very involved in school. He earned a full-ride Evans Scholarship to Michigan State University which he attended after high school.

He had a class reunion scheduled one day in the mid 1980s. My mom and dad dressed their best and drove in my mom’s fancy 1984 Buick Regal. They arrived at the hall and my dad chatted with old classmates. He was perhaps the most popular and well-liked guy there, my mom recalls. Aunt Margie, because she was barely older than my dad and graduated from Pershing as well, attended the reunion, too, to see old friends.

Shortly after dinner and some drinks, my dad was called up to a stage to give a speech to his former classmates and their spouses. He spoke about old memories, told some funny stories, and made people laugh as he did.

After he was done speaking, there was an announcement made that the class wanted to honor my dad with an award. A box was brought out and handed to him. He began opening it as the audience of more than 500 people looked on. He shook his head and began laughing hysterically as he opened the cardboard flap.

The Swan.

Of course, he then told the history of The Swan and stories of the many times it was given away. He had the packed audience roaring with laughter.

After that, The Swan was given away a couple more times. But The Swan started growing old and tired. It laid in a box in a closet where it lived out most of its retirement. No more fanfare, no more laughs, no more spotlight, no more tables to rest its weary, hollowed base on. The Swan’s brownish, golden hair actually started turning gray….Sorry, that was just a layer of dust.

Finally, in the mid 1980s when Aunt Margie was moving from Michigan to a house in Cleveland, TN, The Swan took its last breath and broke in half inside a cardboard box that became its coffin. The Swan was no more. While unpacking the moving van, Margie must have opened the box, saw The Swan cracked in half and let out a small, sentimental cry — or more likely burst into laughter!

Sadly, The Swan’s final resting place is in an unmarked grave in a southern Tennessee landfill. For 10 years, it brought joy to our Varcie family and provided memories that we still talk about 45 years later.

My dad passed away in 1998 and Margie died a few years ago. I can only imagine that they’re in Heaven with The Swan making everyone laugh and scheming up more ways to give it back to each other for eternity.