Sparky, Joyce and Meredith

David MichaelisCharles and Joyce SchulzMeredith Schulz

Nat Gertler over at The AAUGH Blog points out there’s a full-featured (i.e., Flash) Web site for the new book, Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography. Be sure to watch the video, with author David Michaelis. I can see why Schulz’s lost love, Donna Wold, said “I saw pictures of his wife [Joyce] in the newspaper; she looked very pretty.”

I’m very interested in learning more about Joyce, whose daughter Meredith was adopted by Schulz. Watch the video I posted here nearly a year ago to see a few moments of Meredith, whose age was given as 14 in 1963. Schulz had his marriage license backdated to 1949 when he married Joyce in 1951.

ADDED NOTE: I’ve downloaded the promo video for the biography and have put it here.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/OCT07/SchulzAndPeanuts.flv 400 300]

NOVA: Marathon Challenge

October 30, the evening after American Masters shows the Charles Schulz program, NOVA on PBS will present Marathon Challenge.

NOVA wanted to investigate these questions through the “Marathon Challenge,” and with the help of a dozen enthusiastic recruits, we set out to see if “ordinary people” could transform themselves into marathoners in just a matter of months. The results were extraordinary.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/OCT07/NovaMarathon.flv 400 300]

The timing of this program is interesting, because a runner died in the Chicago Marathon this past Sunday; not from the 84° heat, but from a pre-existing heart condition. I have completed six Boston Marathons, under a wide variety of weather conditions, including a day when the temperature hovered around 90°F. And take it from me, it’s not something you want to try unless you’re totally in love with the idea of doing it and are prepared to do the work to get ready.

Does the idea of heading out the door to run 16 miles, even when it’s raining, because that’s what the training schedule says to do, appeal to you? No? Then forget marathon running.

The NOVA participants benefited from expert guidance throughout their 40-week training — hmm… the same number of weeks it takes to have a baby. The idea that anybody can run a marathon is simply wrong. Jon Krakauer is a favorite author of mine, and in his book Into Thin Air he is critical of people who want to believe that anybody can conquer climbing Mt. Everest with proper training and adequate equipment.

WALKING the Boston Marathon course is do-able, with proper preparation. A good friend of mine did exactly that recently. But if you aren’t already a runner, and you’re more than ten pounds overweight, and you’ve never jogged more than three miles, I strongly suggest that you not get it in your head that 26.2 miles is nothing more than 13.1 miles times two, because doubling the effort it takes to do 13.1 miles occurs at about 19 miles. And you still have another 7 miles to go.

My Military Mind

Baghdad - October 10, 2007

In today’s NYTimes…

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — The Marine Corps is pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and to send marines instead to Afghanistan, to take over the leading role in combat there, according to senior military and Pentagon officials.

…and this is what I said a year ago.

    We’ve got to get out of there. Now. It would be far cheaper and safer to simply give Iraq the money it needs to rebuild. Send the National Guard home where it belongs, let half of the regular Army rest, and redeploy the other half to Afghanistan. I’m no military strategist, but this is obvious.

If this was obvious to me a whole year ago, with no military experience whatsoever, what took the experts so long to start coming around to the same conclusion?

Happiness Isn’t…

The word “depressed” is in three out of four panels in today’s Peanuts strip reprint. That’s it! Schulz was happy one quarter of the time.

Peanuts Reprint

Here is a clip from the upcoming American Masters program about Charles Schulz. As hoped, Schulz’s great lost love, Donna Wold, makes an appearance.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/OCT07/SchulzPBS.flv 400 300]
My best buddy, and fellow Schulz fan, D.F. Rogers has these interesting comments to make on the subject of Schulz the man…

That lovable cartoonist, Good Ol’ “Sparky” Schulz…warm and witty. Let’s see what he has to say to Mike Barrier. [Link to interview] The portrait of the man as a REAL person, prickly with strong opinions, but stated in a very normal speaking tone with that distinctive Minnesota accent. I was so fascinated by the prickly things he said, that I just had to cut them out to highlight them, OUT OF CONTEXT. It’s like taking all of the scenes of the mad, drunk, crazy George Bailey [in It’s A Wonderful Life] and putting them together. These are things that he really said, so I wonder what the new Bio says that can be anymore prickly than this — other than sensational things?

No; it’s not the time, it’s the anxiety and the guilt feelings that they give to you. Time is no problem with me. I actually don’t even work very long hours. I start here at 9, and usually I go home at 4 o’clock. That’s not bad. Five days a week; I don’t work at night, or on the weekends. So it’s not a matter of time, it’s just a matter of the energy, I guess, plus the fact that it’s not a job which depends strictly on the amount of hours you put in. It depends on what you can think of. The never-ending burden of having to do something day after day after day, and it never lets up.

No, I’m never swamped by that kind of distraction. The only kind of distractions that bother me are the continual requests for special drawings for my grandfather who’s retiring, or the priest in our church who is retiring and who uses your cartoon, or so-and-so’s birthday’s coming up, or so-and-so is sick in hospital, and auctions—we get auction requests every day. Some are fine, and some are not; if they write “Dear Celebrity,” and it’s a form letter, we throw it away. I cannot understand anybody wanting a favor from somebody and not only not even—most of the time not spelling your name right, but not even using your name at all. But we try to do the best we can with all of these things. Those are the things that bother me the most.
Continue reading Happiness Isn’t…