The story of mungoh
Everyone asks me what mungoh means. Well, pull up a chair and I'll tell you! It all began when I was a wee tot...
It was the late 60's, an age of social upheaval and confusion, an age of bell-bottoms and plaid paired with stripes. In the Wolters household friends for little David were few and far between. It didn't help that David was a daydreamer, basically unable to differentiate between what was real and what existed merely in his oversized head.
One day David was building a fort with the sofa cushions and needed someone to hold a cushion upright while he placed grandma's afghan across them to form a roof. His sister would normally help but she was at school so David was on his own to solve this predicament. As he was prone to do, David "zoned out" while he pondered his options.
As little David's eyes glassed over, a small monkey emerged from his hiding place underneath father Wolters' easy chair. This odd visitor introduced himself as mungoh. David was taken aback by his appearance, a cross between Curious George and the sock monkey that sat on the bookshelf and scared David every night when the lights went out. mungoh sensed David's discomfort and explained that there was no way that he could hurt David because he was a figment of David's vivid imagination. This made sense to David, so he asked if mungoh wanted to help build the fort.
mungoh turned out to be such an amazing problem solver and out-of-the-box thinker that David asked him if he wanted to stay around for a while. mungoh accepted and the two became the best of friends, completely inseparable. Excited to see that David was at last making friends, the rest of the Wolters family readily accepted mungoh. Surprisingly, nobody complained about the extra dishes that needed to be washed or the additional laundry the small visitor created.
mungoh lived with the Wolters family for a few years until one day David awoke and mungoh was gone. He left a note saying that he would always treasure the friendship but he felt that David needed to make some friends who were actually real and had feelings and thoughts of their own. Though devastated, David understood and eventually met some people he liked and became friends with them, forgetting mungoh in the process.
Through the years mungoh's influence on David has been demonstrated over and over.
When I decided to expand my creative services to include web design, graphic design, and marketing & advertising I wanted to create a brand that was completely separate from David Alan Wolters Photography. Many names were considered, but mungoh seemed like the most relevant because my imaginary friend mungoh was the first evidence that my family saw of my over-active imagination.
That imagination is still alive and active as ever and that is what helps me deliver my client's messages in a visual way. Today the imagination is more disciplined, but I like to think that the discipline comes after the initial spark of an idea, during the "fleshing out" phase when an idea is honed to deliver a message effectively and efficiently.
It seemed appropriate to name my new venture after the little guy who taught me the importance of acceptance and thinking without limitations.
Thanks for reading!