Back in 1999, 60 Minutes Steve Kroft
had an interview with Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts. It was
one year before he'd retire the 50 year old comic strip and gave a
surprising revelation as well. I saw it and Schulz looked and acted
like I expected him to, an elderly Midwestern man, with all that
simple forthrightness they have there in middle America. What you
see, is what you get. Compare that to us Yankee New Englanders, who
are as calculating and wary as hell.
Any decent interviewer will play
armchair psychologist as he explores his mark. Kroft was no
different. Kroft finally asks, after saying most cartoonists are
drawing themselves, is Charlie Brown really Charles Schulz? Schulz
stalls, his eyes getting glassier and glassier, and with almost that
first tear ready to drop, responds with a crackled, “y-yes.”
Kroft gets Schulz to admit he was that
Charlie Brown as a kid.
Schulz apparently had no happy
childhood. He sucked in school and managed to fail every subject in
the 8th grade. He sucked at sports, but joined the
school's golf team and blew the only game that mattered, the season's
final, greatest match. Afterwards, he managed to lose the
consolation golf match too.
He had relatively few friends in school
and once said he'd be astonished if anyone of them said “Hi” to
him after school hours, should they meet by chance. He wasn't a
bullies target then, just completely forgotten as a dull, nearly
transparent mediocrity.
Schulz's only saving grace was that he
could draw and even with that, his younger contemporaries thought it
uninspired. Well, we all knew what happened after that. He created
probably, for it's time, the most popular strip ever.
*****
Nothing changes. As kids and as adults,
we're always jockeying for position on that hierarchy of the social
ladder. For myself? I've been up and down it and stayed relatively in
the middle now for decades.
I once knew, as all of you did, one of
those kids who seemed perpetually on the lowest rung. The one I knew
back in 3rd grade was Kevin. It seemed he could do nothing
right and when he did manage a “win” and expected laurels for it,
everyone else dismissed it as insignificant. Kids are bastards! So
are some adults now that I think of it.
As I remember him, he wore to school a
lot of those Hanes tee shirts. He didn't have a collared shirt or
anything on top of it. Plus, those Hanes shirts weren't white but a
grimy gray. I guess Mom or whoever did the laundry never did learn
about Clorox. He also wore what we called Janitor's pants. Those old
army olive-drab green Dickies. The only guys who wore them were
metal machinists we'd see around town. Old WW2 veteran guys with crew
cuts, chomping cigars, dirty and their work clothes smelled of 3-in-1
oil.
Add to that, Kevn's skin wasn't too fun
to look at either, it was layered with dead skin cells and dirt.
When we all left 3rd grade
and moved onto 4th, usually the previous class was held
together for the next grade. We were surprised to find out that Kevin
wasn't with us again. We find a bit later he had moved away. Kevin
was forgotten quickly as dead.
I saw him again without recognizing
when I was just about to enter high school. This guy comes up to me,
holding out his hand and saying “Hi.” He remembered me easily
though. He looked well dressed, clean and he had to remind me of who
he was.
He had told me he did move away back
then and later moved into his Uncle's family. I had asked him why he
was in this field where we teens would hang out and he said he was
there to scout out locations for the next radio controlled airplane
race/contest. He belonged to the Rhode Island chapter of it and was
rated in the top ten fliers. He then went onto say he did very well
with math and was hoping to join the Air Force one day. He probably
did.
As I was talking to him, I did what
everyone else does when meeting someone from the past, you pick up
where you left off. I was initially scornful but that was melting
fast as he told me his story. Inside myself, I felt I was becoming
defensive against this rising star, or already risen star who had a
list of accomplishments. The kicker was that I realized this kid had
crawled out of the pit he was in and was now sitting on whatever top
five rungs of the social ladder he belonged too. It was threatening
to me. This guy was now a viable competitor.
He left after looking around and I
wondered how he went from LOSER to a confident young teen. I was
impressed and a bit dumbfounded by his transformation. The feeling
inside of me was, “How did he manage that?”
Good for him. Good for Schulz too.
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