Finding the brand of a real-life Ken doll

A couple weeks ago, I chatted with a guy at O’Hare Field that looked like a living Ken doll. He was maddeningly good looking — medium height, blond hair, blue eyes, fit and trim and impeccably dressed — and I wondered which Ken doll he might be.

Because it turns out there are more than 50 varieties of Ken dolls out there — Cali Cool Ken, Tropical Vibes Ken, Hip Hoodie Ken, and more. And now they come in a variety of skin tones and body shapes that include slim, broad and original.

So I the guy I was chatting with would probably be pretty close to Original Ken, but that’s not good enough. I wanted to know exactly how this Ken doll would be marketed if he were only a foot tall instead of the maddening and manly half-foot taller than me.

He was in real estate, he said, and although he used to live in tiny Riverside, tucked between Brookfield and Berwyn, he had moved seven months ago to Fort Myers, Florida. When I met him, he was flying back into Chicago.

“Business trip?” I asked. “Visiting family?” I hoped my questions weren’t offensive or snooping. I wanted him to think I was just a friendly guy who was interested in him and willing to do more listening to his story than talking about mine. People like guys like that, right? Even if their real motive is trying to find out how you’d brand and market them if they were made of plastic with poseable joints.

He smiled, genuinely interested in telling his tale.

“Actually, I’m taking this trip just to check on my secret morel sites.”

And then he was off, telling his tale.

Three years ago during the springtime, he decided to go on a morel mushroom hunt through the nearby woods. He had done a little research and decided that the rainfall and temperature had been just right for a morel hunt, and he was off to find as many of the delicious mushrooms as he could.

Although mushroom hunting can be a dicey caper, given the fact that you could die from eating the wrong ‘shroom, morel hunting is a pretty safe bet. There are few mushrooms that could be mistaken for a morel, which stands tall on a thick stem with a tight cap covered in wrinkles and pits that give it a brain-like texture. And so, confident that he wouldn’t be poisoned, off he went on his hunt.

He found exactly one morel that year.

But sauteed in butter, it was so delicious he gave morel hunting another shot the following year. And that year he came home with five-and-a-half pounds of them. If you wanted to buy that many fresh morels, it would cost you a couple hundred dollars.

He was hooked by now, but the following year—last year—he came home with only a bit more than a pound. Still, a pound of morels is nothing to sneeze at.

But since then he has moved down to Fort Myers, and of all the wonderful attractions that Southwest Florida has to offer, morel hunting isn’t one of them. Oh, there are plenty of other fungi in Southwest Florida, but add most of them to the long list of Florida things that want to kill you — snakes, panthers, sharks, fire ants, the NRA.

Still, his love of morels flourished in his soul, and apparently the real estate business in Florida has treated him well this year. So with the pandemic fading and his pockets flush with cash, he felt he could treat himself to a flight back to the Chicago area to check on his secret morel fields.

“And you’re not going to tell me where you find them, are you?” I asked.

He smiled. “Not a chance.”

Fair enough, I thought, because in my lifetime I have found exactly two morel mushrooms — one in a nearby forest whose location you will never be able to twist from me, even if you pull off my fingernails, and the other in a mulched flower bed right outside my front door (of a different home I use to own, so don’t go crawling around my current flower beds anytime soon.) And both of those morels were as delicious as you could ask any fungus to be.

“So I’m taking this trip back to Chicago because the rainfall and the temperature seem to be ideal for this time of year,” he said. “It would be nice to find a good harvest this year. But even if not, I really enjoy the hunt.”

I wished him luck as he turned to leave — and I really meant it, because Morel Hunter Ken turned out to be a real fungi…I mean, fun guy.

TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com.

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