Utah Adventures: Part 4, Prune Man

Meet Prune Man. Doesn’t he look like he’s ready for a hike through the Alps with his little backpack and lederhosen? Prune Man was born on Christmas eve as a surprise for my brothers. He is made out of wire and yep, you guessed it, prunes. His clothes were hand sewn by my mom years ago.

Let me give you a little back history. When one of my brothers was in high school he took German. Apparently he didn’t have the best grade in the class but he had an option to do an extra credit project: make a prune man (I guess these are a tradition in certain parts of the German-speaking world—anyone heard of this before?). So, my brother made the prune man and dressed him up and passed his German class.

Years later, my other brother mentioned the prune man and was met with a blank stare and a confession that brother number one did not remember the prune man. At all. After that when one of them would tell a story that the other did not remember the other would reply with “prune man”; “prune man” became synonymous with “I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about” or “sorry man, but I don’t remember that.”

This year when my mom was getting out the Christmas decorations, she found Prune Man’s apparel. We decided it would be a fun (and hilarious) surprise to recreate Prune Man and have him waiting to greet my brothers on Christmas morning.

Prune Man was met with much laughter and delight on Christmas morning. And that’s the story of Prune Man.