On My Way To Where The Air Is Sweet

If you keep track of numbers, and I do, then you might appreciate that this being the fiftieth year of Sesame Street alongside the fact that Carroll Spinney is eighty-five means he got his job as Big Bird when he was thirty-five years old. Or to be more precise, it might be correct to say that Mister Spinney was eighty-five. He died over the weekend. Which I suppose means that he will always be eighty-five. I confess that I'm not exactly sure how that works.
I am sure about that fifty years thing. Carroll Spinney was the insides of Sesame Street's avian emissary for forty-nine of those years. Actually inside the feathery costume until 2015 when the physical demands became too great for a man in his eighties.  The voice was always Spinney, and perhaps most important, so was the heart.
As a Muppet aficionado, I was familiar with Carroll Spinney for all those years. I was seven when the Children's Television Workshop opened up shop on Sesame Street, so I was just outside the target demographic. Which did not keep me from looking in. It was fast and funny, and it was a chance to regularly see the Muppets, to whom I had been introduced on the Ed Sullivan Show. The Sesame Street Muppets were a kinder, gentler version of the ones I had seen on that really big shoe. With the possible exception of Kermit, who provided a link thanks to Jim Henson. The man who hired Carroll Spinney to be the conscience of the neighborhood.
And the crank.
Carroll Spinney could also be found inside the trash can of Oscar The Grouch. This, as a behind-the-scenes kind of fan, was fascinating to me. How did they get those two characters to interact? The  obvious answer: magic. Plain and simple. Muppet magic. Many years later, I watched the documentary I Am Big Bird, appreciating the lifelong commitment Mister Spinney had for his work. Big Bird would not have walked down Sesame Street, let alone strolled along the Great Wall of China. Multiple generations of children have grown up watching that eight foot tall flightless fowl and his grouchy green doppelganger. And the Muppet magic suggests that they will continue to, as finding someone to take over the nest and trash can. But there will never be another Carroll Spinney. In those big orange feet, he truly stomped on the Terra. He will be missed.
Aloha, Mister Spinney.