Mary Garnet was a popular writer of children's books in the U.S. during the 1940's. Her Husband was a test pilot for the U.S. Air Force. His secret project was code named "Blue Gale" who's goal was to produce the first plane that would break the sound barrier. Mary affectionately nick-named her husband "Hedgehog" because of the way his hair always struck straight up when he took off his flight helmet. The nickname stuck and it inspired Mary to decorate his leather flight jacket with a blue cartoon mascot. Since her husband was so busy flying for the Air Force, Mary had to fill in for him raising their only daughter Sherry. Mary would spend the afternoons making up stories to tell Sherry and her friends. Oddly enough, it would always seem that a hedgehog would be the hero of the story. "Sonic" the hedgehog had many fantastic adventures usually protecting innocent people and little animals from evil men.
Sherry used to love hearing these stories and Mary used to love telling them to lots of children for many years (these stories and their characters were used as the basis for the Sonic video games from Sega. SEE: The Game Story).
In 1947, Chuck Yeager (also a test pilot for the U.S. Air Force) became the first man to break the sound barrier to become the "fastest man alive".
But a little known incident took place earlier on the same day that has been lost in the record books, eclipsed by the historic event. Another pilot called Hedeghog had set out to break the same record but with tragically different results. His ill-fated jet plane was rocketing towards the speed record when it suddenly started to vibrate violently and then exploded in a tremendous fireball! Nobody seems to remember the real name of the brave pilot, but old-timers around the airport still remember the emblem of Sonic the blue hedgehog......
About forty years later, a freelance camera woman named Meg came to town on an assignment to cover an upcoming Air Show. As she stopped for lunch, she decided to browse through an interesting looking Antique shop near the airport.
Inside she discovered a very dusty old leather flight jacket with the emblem of a strange character and the letters S-O-N-I-C on the back. She tried to decide if this character was a lion, a cat, or some other strange animal.
But something drew her to it and she instantly liked it a lot. She tried it on and the shopkeeper couldn't help but notice:
"Say Lady..... looks like that Jacket is just your size! Do you like it?"
"Why yes! It's great! It's a little dirty but.......do you know what this word SONIC means? It sounds strangely familiar. Like I've heard it before....."
"Well, I guess it's probably the name of that funny-lookin critter on the back."
"Sonic.. yes Sonic!... Oh I remember, he is SONIC THE HEDGEHOG! I used to hear the stories from an old neighbor lady when I was a little girl. He's a little hedgehog that can run faster than sound!"
Meg laughed out loud as the rush of childhood memories poured back to her. She dusted off the old jacket, eagerly paid for it, and she giggled to herself as she wore it out of the store. This immediately became a favorite possession and she wore it everywhere. She could not explain the strange sensation she felt when she w as wearing this jacket, but something made her feel quite comfortable and safe with it on.
Upon arriving at the Air Show, Meg started taking pictures of all the vintage aircraft. At one point during the show, a group of old WW2 planes were doing a low-level formation fly-by when suddenly one of the planes veered off and fell to the ground! In the panic of the following explosion, Meg found herself surrounded by fire. She tried to escape but became disoriented as all she could see was a wall of flame. Suddenly a hand reached out and grabbed her just as she was passing out from the intense heat. As she slipped into unconsciousness, all she could see was a strange blue form and she felt the sensation of tremendous acceleration.
