Funny the World...

THANK YOU, CHARLES SCHULZ

May 28, 2000

Today was the day when all the cartoonists paid a tribute to Charles Schulz by incorporating something about Peanuts into their strips. It was so touching, I had to cry. There were two deaths of public figures which affected me deeply--Jim Henson was the first and Charles Schulz was the second. Schulz has been a figure in all of our lives probably for as long as we can remember. I can remember being a kid, lying in bed on a Sunday morning and having my mother bring the comics for me to read. The one morning I remember especially was a Sunday comic when Snoopy and Lucy started singing "Dem Bones" and getting all the wrong bones connected to the wrong bones. I laughed myself silly reading that cartoon.

Our kids naturally grew up with the Peanuts gang. We still have several stuffed Snoopys around here. Snoopy figured very prominently in the plays that the kids put on when they were younger. When Paul became an adult, he lived for a time with a woman who had a baby. Paul was the baby’s only father figure for the first year of her life and after Paul and the mother broke up, he gave the baby his still-beloved Snoopy because he said she shouldn’t have to grow up without Snoopy in her life.

The last show of the Sunshine Children’s Theatre (where our kids got their start in show biz) was You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Jeri was the director (she was just out of high school at the time). Ned was the lighting designer. Tom played Schroeder. David was Linus, and Paul, of course, was Charlie Brown, with all their friends filling in the other roles. It was one of my proudest moments the night that show opened and was a darn good production.

In the afternoon, Walt and I went to see the new Woody Allen movie, Small Time Crooks. A friend of mine reviewed it-- "It’s okay." That’s about how I felt. I don’t know if Allen is getting old or if I’m getting old (and I guess we both are), but I felt it dragged. The reviewers seem to be pretty evenly divided on it. Tracy Ullman is wonderful, but the whole shtick just seemed to go on too long. (I even dozed in the middle).

We spent the evening at Ned & Marta's house, having a Mexican dinner, after which we watched Bullworth on their DVD player (much better than Small Time Crooks). The new cat, Hooper, fell in love with my hair for some reason and we couldn't keep him out of it!

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