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Originally posted February 13, 2000 on Original BigCloset
"Sparky Is My Hero"
by Joyce E. MeltonFebruary 13, 2000
And while I'm at it, thank you, Charles Schulz.
There'll always be a Snoopy-shaped hole in my heart
Left by the Shakespeare of Sequential Art.
As long as any of us still have a pulse,
We'll never forget you. We'll always love you.
Remembered forever, always together,
Charlie Brown, Linus and Lucy, Woodstock, Peppermint Patty
And the rest of the Peanuts gang.
I'm typing with tears in my eyes,
The morning paper will never be the same.
I'm just starting to realize
What you meant to us all.
Day after day for nearly fifty years,
Wisdom and whimsy, all of it gently
Told in playlets a child could understand.
Genius isn't the measure of a man
But only an accounting of what he's done.
Steadfast, upright, ornery, and true,
Charles Schulz shared himself with us,
His dreams, his cruel wishes, his fears.
He was Lucy, holding the ball,
And he was Charlie Brown lying there stunned
When she did what you knew she was going to do.
He was Snoopy watching his doghouse smoulder
And lamenting the loss of his Van Gogh.
He was Sally, fearful on the first day of school,
Wondering if she's going to miss the bus.
He was Linus, patient in the pumpkin patch.
He was Shroeder, intent on what he did best.
He was Peppermint Patty, getting a D-minus on the test.
He was the child in all of us, afraid to play the fool,
Hoping we'll do better when we get older,
Knowing we've still got a long way to go.
He was Everyman, every day.
He taught us that it isn't about the games you've won,
It's about standing in the rain, wanting to play.
Did Snoopy ever pretend that he'd shot the Red Baron down?
It's not about glory, it's about crossing No Man's Land
To find your mud-covered brother
And share a few root beers in town.
Linus never gave up his blanket, Lucy never learned to catch.
Pigpen took one bath, it was all he could stand,
And it took one panel for it to be undone.
After half a century of inflation, Lucy finally raised her price,
But for the cost of a newspaper, the doctor was in.
Mr. Sack had all the answers and everyone was his friend,
And when the sun came up it had a silly grin.
I guess all of us thought it could never end.
Nothing so wonderfully original should ever happen twice
But if I could have a wish, I wish that I might touch
Half as many people, half as often and half as much
As the man who thought up all those Li'l Folks
And made all those little jokes,
My hero, "Sparky," Charles M. Schulz.
Charles M. Schulz, 26 Nov 1922-12 Feb 2000.
Copyright 2000 by Joyce E. Melton.
All rights reserved.
Comments
How sweet
You made me smile and you brought tears to my eyes. I'll never forget a cartoon I saw in the paper after the sad news broke. It showed 'Sparky's' drawing pad on his desk, on it a picture of Snoopy with a tear running down his face. Outside the window of the office you could see a man with his arm on Charlie Brown's shoulder as they walked away. The caption read, 'Come on son, let's go kick that football.'
Charles Schulz was a true artist. Thanks for the sweet remembrance.
Scott
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of--but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Lazarus Long - Robert A. Heinlein's 'Time Enough for Love'
Bree
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy
http://genomorph.tglibrary.com/ (Currently broken)
http://bree-ramsey314.livejournal.com/
Twitter: @genomorph
Thanks
A sweet memory Erin.
John who was almost named Charles in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Thanks for reposting your tribute
A classy comic.
Gentle yet though provoking stories in ink and pen and he was from the Midwest, Minneapolis, so what's not to like?
John in Wauwatosa
P.S. Dance on top of a piano in his honor?
John in Wauwatosa
Lovely Tribute
This was a lovely tribute. I look forward to reading it again next year, and every year.
Times Arrow
Yeah, it comes to us all. Shakespeare would have approved of Mr. Schulz in my estimation. Simple lines drawn, or written that convey so much of the human condition that lesser artists require reams of paper and a multitude of canvases to convey the same information. Lincoln's Gettysberg address is right up there with that sort of thing. I don't know much about information theory but I harbor the notion that the longer the document the less useful information it contains. I had missed his passing but always enjoyed his work, thanks for sharing Joyce.
Gwen
Gwen Lavyril
Gwen Lavyril
Great good fortune
I had the luck to meet Charles Schulz three times but I never managed to say a word to him. I felt like a kid meeting a hero. When he died and his last cartoon appeared the next day, all the grief of my father's death three years earlier came back as if my dad had died all over again. The sadness overwhelmed me and after posting this the first time, I disappeared from the web for most of two years.
My great good fortune is that I was alive to read and enjoy his work for his whole career on Peanuts.
BigCloset really is my effort to touch a few people, not in the way Charlie and the gang touched me but in my own way.
Thanks again, Sparky.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Very sweet
Very sad and touching. While I was only around for a very limited portion of the Peanuts run, it was always one of my favorite comics in the newspaper, and I was very sad when Charles Schulz died.
I can guarantee you that BC has touched people, though that's obvious without anyone having to say it just from the massive number of people you have who, every day, take the time to visit. It may not touch people in the same way, but it's just as important.
--------------------
*insert witty comment here*
Even this Brit ...
... determinedly unsentimental to a fault and stiff upper-lipped to the end confesses that something in his eye (a piece of grit no doubt) caused him a little trouble when Charlie Brown no longer adventured and Snoopy no longer flew.
Thanks Erin (or do we thank Joyce this time?). I'm not even a poetry fan, dammit, but that piece of grit seems to be causing me trouble again.
Geoff
Miss him too
He spoke to an innocence I do not believe exists any more, or not for very long. Kids that age grow up faster and faster somehow and that narrow band of time Schulz left his creations in for those many decades of his career probably lasts no more than 2 or 3 years now.
Kim
Gosh, is it ten years?
No wonder the hills get steeper.
Angharad
PS. I wish you'd do more poetry, Joyce - it's good stuff.
Angharad
Just you wait ...
... young woman. They get even harder.
I can't believe it either. Why, wasn't it just the other day? Even though Peanuts wasn't one of the daily strips in my 'paper of choice I always took a look whenever he cropped up. Schulz certainly had a keen eye for what passes for real life and Erin's piece encapsulates that beautifully. I'm neither a reader nor writer of poetry normally but there's no doubt the odd piece manages to do in a few words more than huge volume can achieve.
Time flies and now I've achieved my three score and ten it seems to fly faster.
Thanks for reposting
Robi
Just one word fits on the tenth anniversary of his death
Rats !
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Hoisting A Root Beer...
To Sparky: We miss you, dear friend.
Thanks for the lovely tribute and the memories
Thanks for the lovely tribute and the memories.
Kris
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Beautiful poetry
Even after all these years, I still get misty thinking about Charles Schulz. He was an inspiration to me. Even though he worked in a different medium, the way he could tell stories with a few words and pictures in four magical boxes was amazing, and I always try to my best to emulate that way of telling stories in my writing.
Thank you, Joyce, for sharing this poem and all your other wonderful writing, as well as for providing this special place for other writers. (((warm hugs))) Heather Rose :)
I miss him
still.
Thanks Erin
Somehow in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of life, things like the work of great men who accomplish great things with small deeds seem to go unnoticed and un-acclaimed until they are not there anymore.
Sadly, with the passing of time, we often tend, for those same hustle and bustle reasons, fail to remember their passing. Thanks for reminding us that we're never too old to acknowledge the child within us who is still a bit unsure of who we are and where we're going and helping to keep Sparky's legacy alive.
Of all the Christmas specials around, my favorite is still, "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Of all the characters, Charles Schultz created, I identify most with pigpen. I was that kid who didn't want to bathe and didn't mind being dirty. The concept of being able to raise a dust cloud in a rain storm spoke to me.
Sparky, you are missed and still loved by us all.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
When I was a teen,
my Father went and bought his dream car...a Corvette. Dad loved that car, but something else he loved went on that car... a plaque of Snoopy, on his doghouse(plane), scarf flying in the wind, hunting the Red Baron... proudly displayed on Dad's most treasured possession and dream car.
Everyone who is anyone, misses Charles Schultz.
May I say to Joyce... do you undersand that YOU are OUR Sparky? You have touched SO mny people, given them a place to be their real selves and given them a home where they can communicate with other who shaare their condition.
You may not have reached quite as many as Mr. Shultz did, but you have reached a lot of people who might have otherwise given up hope. You have, along with your crew of helpers given many people something they desterately needed. A forum for their hopes, their dreams, a place where they can express their fears and not be laughed at, or discounted as minorities, freaks, perverts.
YOU Joyce have given far more of yourself than anyone ever had a right to expect or even hope for.
So, I salute YOU, Joyce, and bestow upon you that honored and loved nickname... Sparky, We love you and we thank you.
Catherine Linda Michel
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
Hear, hear!
Smiling with tears in my eyes. He's my hero too.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Charles Shultz
To this day, Peanuts is and always will be my favorite cartoon strip. It was with great joy that my Boston news paper has started including Peanuts on the comics page. When young, (50 yrs ago) even in my teens I bought the Comic books.
Hometown Hero
St. Paul, MN continues to honor "Sparky."
\https://www.minnpost.com/stroll/2016/08/charles-schulzs-st-p...
My favorite tribute is the Snoopy-shaped bunker. Aaugh!
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
That photo
That photo at the bottom of this post was taken in downtown St Paul. There's apparently a park there with numerous statues. Schulz was born in Minneapolis and grew up in St. Paul, a hometown boy for both cities. There are statues in Santa Rosa, CA, too.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Gosh, it's been twenty years.
Gosh, it's been twenty years. Every time I read your wonderful tribute I tear up, Erin. Thank you so much.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Snoopy
Snoopy was my quintessential hero. He was there for all the kids and his imagination was beyond measure. When Woodstock joined him the pair of them became twice as good as Woodstock couldn't stay out of mischief and Snoopy was always explaining to him with that great sage attitude why he shouldn't have done it. What made it all so real was Snoopy needed his own sage to explain to him why he shouldn't have done it. So who should it be? No one but tiny little Woodstock himself passing advice back.
Could anything be more true to real life than that?
Curse you Red Baron!
always
Barb
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Snoopy flies on ...
NASA has long used a "Zero Gravity Indicator" on their ships, Very often it's a stuffed toy, and very often selected by Crew. They want something soft, because a ship can go from zero to 3 plus gravities.
When it floats free, the ship in in Zero-G.
As I type, Snoopy, custom space suit and all, is floating free in the Orion-I crew space capsule, orbiting the Moon.
This Orion test flight is un-crewed, unless you Count Snoopy and
Commander "Moon-ikin" Campos. There are also two torsos, all designed to monitor health effects in a place where cosmic rays are several hundred times more intense than 'down here', inside of our planet's electo-magnetic shielding. The Auroras? That glow is from the Earth 'grounding out' charged cosmic rays.
Artemis/Orion-II will have a crew.
Artemis/Orion-III is planned to return humans to the Moon, for the first time in over 50 years. (Start at NASA & Artemis.)
See also: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/sfa/aac/silver-snoopy-....
I grew up a fan of Peanuts…….
Like many in my age group - and as my father worked on both the Gemini and Apollo projects, my stuffed Snoopy in a NASA spacesuit was always one of my fondest memories.
My favorite cartoons though were the Looney Tunes, which with their adult humor lasted well beyond my childhood, becoming funnier once I was old enough to understand the true meanings of some of the hidden humor. I grew up loving Bugs Bunny and his wise ass attitude, but my true favorite was always Daffy Duck. Who could forget Duck Dodgers? Who could ever come up with a better line than, “You’re dissssspicable!”
When Mel Blanc, who voiced many if not all, of the characters died, one of the artists produced a wonderfully poignant piece of art titled “Speechless”, of which I was able to purchase a numbered copy. It was a picture of all of the characters he voiced, from Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, the whole group - all standing silently with their heads bowed and hats doffed, watching an abandoned microphone stand with no one to give voice to them. A fitting tribute to the man who made those characters real for so many of us.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcomics.ha....
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
What's Up Doc?
Radiolab did a great podcast about Mel Blanc called "What's Up Doc?"
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Beside the Point...
...but Elmer's not in the image. He was voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan until Bryan's death in 1959. IIRC, Blanc says in his autobiography that he took on the character after that.
Eric