Classic Peanuts

 

Between the daily editions and the Sunday strips, Charles Schulz posted 17,897 original "Peanuts" comics over the years.  At the time this one appeared in our daily paper on October 4, 1969, I thought it was and always would be the best one ever, and nothing ever changed my mind about that. 

The words Charlie Brown said to himself sounded like every one of the good old country music songs that I loved since I was Charlie's age.  What I didn't know back in the pre-WWW days, was that Schulz was a big country fan, even naming the "boneless cat" Faron after his favorite male singer, Faron Young.

Just swap out the gender and this strip works for anyone who's ever been lost in love. I just hope that Charlie wound up with the little red-haired girl for real. 

The Ride

 Remember those Canadian wildfires this past summer? Let me tell you about Patricia Robinson and her story in the fires.

Ms Robinson is 90 and she had been traveling alone by plane one day from her home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to see family in Kelowna, British Columbia. Her family had paid for her trip as a gift for her big birthday.

She didn't get far. Less than an hour into the flight, the pilot came on the intercom with the news that the airspace across Western Canada was closed because of the smoke from the fires, and the plane was turning back to Calgary.

Picking up her luggage, she chatted with two guys who were in the same stranded boat, if you will: disappointed fellow flyers Quinn Sedmak, 48, and Tanner Salewich, 45. At first, all of them were booked on later flights that same day, all of which were cancelled because of the smoke.

So....

Sedmak found a reasonable rental car, and Salewich said he was down for the drive. Then they invited Robinson to come along, and she was up for it.

“What kind of crazy 90-year-old would be getting in the car with two strangers?” Robinson said. This kind: the kind who said, “I really didn’t want to spend the night in Calgary or go back to Saskatoon,” said Robinson.

Then she texted her family to let them know she’d be driving to the family gathering with two strangers she met on the flight. 

“It didn’t even occur to me what they might think.”

That is my kind of person!

“I wasn’t concerned about it at all,” she said. “I just totally trusted them both. I had no qualms about it.”

Leaving the Calgary airport at dinnertime, Sedmak, who has driven this trip "countless times" took the wheel. Salewich sat shotgun to navigate and Ms Robinson got in the back, riding shotgun shadow and remembering drives along the same roads years before with her late husband.

 

Quinn Sedmak, Patricia Robinson and Tanner Salewich

They got her to her family after seven hours of stories and listening to comedy. “They were very kind and considerate and polite to me all the way,” Ms Robinson said. “It had to come from somewhere, so I’m giving their moms the credit.”

Yes, we're told to be careful and don't go off with strangers, but sometimes, I think you have to trust your fellow humans. 

 

Nepo coach

Ms Carlie Irsay-Gordon is the granddaughter of Robert Irsay, the eldest daughter of Jim Irsay, and the sister of fellow Colts co-owners Casey Foyt and Kalen Jackson. She is the CEO and calls the shots after all is said and undone.

She found a Colts cheerleader outfit from the 1950s.

Just her bloodline is enough to make me shun her. Her great-grandmother, mother of Robert "Bob" Irsay, once said that Big Bob was "the devil on earth," and that was before he took our Colts and moved them to some hellhole in a state with towns such as Gnaw Bone, Toad Hop, Floyds Knobs, and French Lick.

She does have people running the team, but she has decided to cosplay as some sort of supercoach. She struts along the sidelines with a hat on and a headset with mic, and is seen taking notes and pulling on the sleeves of the real coach when she has a question or a suggestion. 

Now, a lot of people say she has every right to do as she wishes, since she inherited the team upon the passing of her drug-riddled dad Jimmy.  And I agree. It's her football, so to speak, and she can do with it as she wishes.

And her supporters say she is doing what every business owner should be doing - keeping a close eye on the family moneymaker and learning the game from the ground up.

And then come people such as I, saying that in 1976, Ted Turner, having bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team (with his own money, I hasten to add: he didn't inherit anything but a million dollar-debt when his father died) and finding it hard to watch so many losing games, put on a uniform and managed the Braves for a game. They still lost, and the next morning, cooler heads prevailed, and Ted was back to watching the games from the owner's booth.

I don't care for anyone whose name includes "Irsay" in any form. She does run the place, but just as I wouldn't want to be having brain surgery and having some new owner of the hospital donning surgical garb and peering into my noodle, Ms Irsay does not need to be parading around on the sidelines while people are doing the work they have trained all their lives learning to do. That diminishes their authority. She can take notes like the rest of us do while watching the Colts: half asleep in a recliner. 

What matters more

 Everyone was talking about Usha Vance almost taking a header while coming down the staircase off a helicopter at Joint Base Andrews yesterday. She was toting her  10-week-old infant Alec Neel Vance in a baby carrier. Fortunately, she did not fall, and no one was hurt.

SLOTUS grabbed the banister to right herself, and got back on both feet in no time at all. Listen, I have no truck with her or any member of her family. But she is a fellow human being, and being one of them myself, I cannot figure how the two Air Force airmen who were standing there with their arms at their sides, and the Marine who was saluting, did not make a move to be there to help.

 Now I saw people on social media saying, "oh you have to understand, there is a strict military protocol in these matters and they are duty-bound not to drop that bearing in any circumstance." 

But here I am, private citizen, saying that makes no sense, especially in a day and time when very high ranking gov't officials use the coarsest gutter language in the high gov't office and no one even looks askance at it any longer, and people of great importance carry on unsanctified congresses with people not their spouses and everyone just shakes their head. Man, woman, child, male, female, I believe we help someone who's about to fall especially when they have a baby in their arms. 

What good is protocol if that woman or the baby had been injured?

 

Camping!

Just as I was planning to spend a week hiking a rugged island in the middle of Lake Superior, I read about what happened to Craig Berg, and I changed my mind. From here on in, all my rugged hiking will be done on rugs.

Berg is 70, still a young man, and he left in August to traipse around Isle Royale National Park. It did not go well. 

A park ranger told him, “If something happens to you, it could be several days until somebody finds you.”

That alone would be enough to make me change my mind and stay home. I hate to be alone.

But Berg thought he'd be ok. He had a satellite-capable phone with a mapping app. 

This reminds me of all the people who told me over the years, "I'll be ok...I have four-wheel drive!"

So off he went, and then on Day Four, disappointment set in. He lost his way on what he called "a poorly marked trail," winding up in a swamp. He fell in the muck, drenching his clothes, bag and food. His boots came off but he found them, and you can just imagine how great it feels to put your hooves back in wet muddy boots. And his phone was sucked into the morass beneath his muddy feet.

Lost somewhere in the 207-square-mile island’s network of trails, he began hollering, "Help! I'm lost!"

He estimates he hollered those three words more than 10,000 times before embarking on the worst 11 days of anyone's life. He wandered in the woods, eating some freeze-dried food and drinking the worst water he ever tasted. 

Meanwhile, back at home, his wife Debbie was scared witless, of course, as her thoughts ran to what would happen on that island and images of moose and wolves danced across her thoughts.

Then Berg spotted a pair of kayakers 11 days after he’d gone missing.

When they came ashore, he told them his story and they were surprised to see him, having planned on simply seeing moose walking about. 

So, thanks to heaven for sending two kayakers. They told Berg they wanted beer for their trouble.

We have our priorities.

Sunday Rerun: Body Hacks

 

I found this list...and wanted you to see it.

 You know what they used to say; you can fool some of the people all of the time, but this is a list of ways to fool your body. Having lots of time on my hands, I roadtested them for you last week when we were stuck in the house with the weather outside being all frightful.

Here are the results of that trial. I pretended to be nervous, so I pinched my nose (1). It doesn't say for how long, and soon enough, I ran out of breath, so I got nervous for real, about the heartbreak of asphyxiation. But my nose said "no" when I went for another pinch.

I thought of something that would make me anxious, and that was the tendency of so many people to confuse "eager" and "anxious" ("I'm anxious to see what's in that Amazon box") - when you know very well it's the set of canvas shoebags you've had your heart set on, so you're eager, not anxious.  So I put my hand on my heart and took slow, deep breaths (2). Peggy thought I was reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and changed the Music Choice to the John Philip Sousa Channel.

My energy levels range from somnambulant to near-hysterical, so I splashed cold water on my face while taking a brisk walk (3) to bring up the recycling tub. It being 13° at the time, little flecks of ice were forming on my chin and cheeks by the time I got back, so I energetically grabbed a warm towel.

My nose is stuffy at all times. I think my adenoidectomy needs to be redone. But I tried putting an ice cube on the roof of my mouth (4) but unfortunately it came too close to the Vicks Vapoinhaler in my nose and suddenly everything tasted like peppermint patties.

I don't know what it means, not to be able to sleep (5). I did try blinking rapidly, but I wound up straining an eyelid muscle, and it's the darndest thing, getting an Ace bandage on that!

Maybe the people who put out that list need to try a different test pilot.

The Saturday Picture Show, October 3, 2026

The homeowners asked online what to do with this architectural error. I say, make it a tiny stage for Junior to practice his oratory skills on the subject of poor house design. 

It is October and time to trot out the Halloween Snoopy decorations! 

What happened here was, all the years of glue holding advertisements to the billboard provided a perfect breeding ground for mushrooms!

Just think - these leaves, and several trillion like them, will soon be on your front yard. And the side yard, the back yard, and the driveway. And the porch.

There's no sign-up sheet, just go! or should I say just went?

I wondered what happened to the querulous woman and the sassy cat. I see, they wound up on this guy's calves!

You know, there will be some who come in and ask for the Oil Change Latte!

Just tell the kids they're for keeping Dad's cigarette package dry, and hope he doesn't go in and ask for one that fits a Camel.

If you've been fortunate enough to go to Amish Country, you've seen this sort of sight...the hoss burns oats, not gasoline...

Looks like the KMart where you used to get that popcorn and an Icee, right? But look at the quarter by the door...it's a perfect model!