I’ve always enjoyed the comic strip “Peanuts” and the gang, and watching the yearly specials that air around the holidays. I even had a dog named Snoopy, but he already had that name before my family adopted him. Not to mention, when I was little, he was by my side when I played out in my parents’ backyard. Since Charles Schulz retired from drawing the daily comic strip featuring Charlie Brown and the gang in 2000, I now get a daily Peanuts comic strip via e-mail. So when this one popped into my inbox, it definitely hit close to home. It’s as if it should have been one of the many specials that have been broadcast over the years. Perhaps its title could have been It’s a Road, Charlie Brown. Just throwing it out to see if it sticks!
The strip that arrived in my e-mail today originally appeared in newspapers on October 19, 1959. Much like most little boys, I liked to play in the dirt with my toy trucks. Either building roads out of mud or repairing mud roads, mimicking what I saw in the real world.
Let me tell you, there was plenty to mimic back in the 1980s in southwestern Pennsylvania. The Penn-Lincoln Parkway reconstruction project was winding down just as construction was beginning on the Parkway North. Then of course there was the usual construction work that took place from year-to-year.
With my interest in roads, I’d usually end up “building” or “repairing” one made of mud. My dog, Snoopy, would usually be the first to use my mud road. You could tell by the definite paw prints in the newly poured roadway.
Since it was 1959, I wonder if Linus is “building” one of those new Interstates people were talking about.
Peanuts – GoComics
