The Funnies

I come from a dying breed—practically extinct-- of children who ate breakfast with their parents at an actual table.  A major part of those meals was spent reading the morning newspaper:  The Los Angeles Times was our main source of information.   I vividly remember my mother, newspaper spread across her face, commenting on Eleanor Roosevelt’s death; telling us what a wonderful woman she was. The bombing of the little girls in a church in Birmingham, Alabama was shared over the same table.  This was how I learned about the world.

The sections of the paper were divided up between the four of us. My father taught me how to read the baseball stats, know the initials “ERA”, “RBI”, and see who would be pitching for the Dodger’s that night all from the sports section.  I learned a lifetime of common sense from reading DEAR ABBY. But, without a doubt, the best part of the paper was the “funnies.”

People of a “certain generation” have their favorites.  I loved the drama of REX MORGAN, MD and the “I’m so superior and all knowing” nose butting of MARY WORTH.   I could almost picture her walking down the streets of Atwater. NANCY and SLUGGO were my best friends, and the war orphan DONDI tweaked my pre-adolescent heart. They even made a movie about that cartoon and by his demise, the orphan from Italy had morphed into being Vietnamese. ANDY CAPP gave me a glimpse of what my future life in Britain would be. There was one cartoon that made me want to change my name. I’m grateful that I didn’t.  Not telling.

I followed the black and white stories with more passion than I did the Mickey Mouse Club, Leave It to Beaver, Bonanza or The Monkeys. And on Sunday’s they were in color.

When today’s newspaper was delivered, something that I am well aware will soon be an anomaly, I went straight to the comics. Now the comics are always in color. The strips that I loved are no longer.

But there is one “comic” that hangs on.  It is the one comic that I never “got.” It was in the LA Times and it is in The Honolulu Star-Advertiser.  But only on Sunday;  same as when I was a child. PRINCE VALIANT never got his hooks in me because I could never buy into the once weekly story,

It ticks me off that there are crossword puzzle questions about Prince Valiant’s wife. And it ticks me off that I don’t know the answer. Give me a question about Kryptonite and I am good to go.