It all started with a panda hat at a thrift store...
“What’s with the panda ?” is how most of my conversations start with strangers. I usually respond with a smile and I know it has served its purpose of breaking the ice. It’s kind of random how the Panda thing manifested.
When I first arrived in WA some five plus years ago, an old artist friend and I were looking around a local Goodwill thrift store. He was looking for some outfits for an Halloween party and I was just tagging along until I passed by a winter panda hat. It was mainly intended for kids but it fit my large head. I took a funny photo to share and laugh at my expense and put it back down. However we kept passing it by over and over and I decided for 6 bucks I might as well buy it. It fit well and kept my head warm for the winter. I started wearing it everywhere. I didn’t really have any intention of getting reactions cause it really did work well as a warm winter hat and I liked it. Few weeks later I was on Skype with my mother from overseas and she tells me to hold on, goes off camera and rolls back in with a hat on her head. To my surprise it was the same hat and she found it there in Turkey and had gotten it cause it reminded her of me. This led to other small items like a dashboard solar Panda bobble head thing and panda shirt here and there and eventually an actual Panda head to wear as a character. I kept it in my older 2001 Subaru Outback wagon and that got the attention of my local Subaru community as the panda wagon and that was the launch of panda wagon ver 1.0. The explosion led to gifts from people and friends of panda things which naturally motivated my own desire and passion for collection all things panda and using the panda elements to interact with people or break the ice sometimes with my volunteering tasks as a Subaru Ambassador. So now we have an actual white wagon, a 2020 Subaru Outback XT Onyx Edition; the official Panda Wagon ver 2.0 and we intend to take it on many adventures and we look forward to sharing them with you.
Thank you for your support
Panda
