Looking to the Peanuts gang to sustain our spirits

We could all use a bit of Linus the philosopher and Sparky’s humanity right about now

I learned a new lesson about Zoom appearances last week after I was caught in a bit of an unflattering position. It was not the dreaded pyjama bottoms known to be commonplace both on computer screens and Hamilton streets these days.

It was my hair. While I have been able to make do with doing my own do for over a year now, I am beginning to recognize the need for a professional. With the right amount of hair gel, I can make the front look almost as good as it did when Vera was making it happen for me at The Hairem. I have sought the help of my partner a few times after forgetting most of her scissor work was done in an ’80s punk rock band which isn’t quite the look I’m going for.

This all came to a head, literally mine, during a recent presentation to the McMaster University Women’s Club. I moved away from the camera to point to something behind me and as I returned to face them, I caught a glimpse of a couple of wayward duck tails and a bare spot behind my left ear. Depending on their settings and vision, it is possible they may have caught every hole I’ve hacked with my Mom’s old and sharp barber scissors.

The importance of maintaining a front-facing exposure reminded me of the first philosopher under whom I studied, one Linus Van Pelt, of the Peanuts gang. When Charlie Brown asks him why he polishes only the front of his shoes, Linus says, “I want to make a good impression when I enter the room. I don’t care as much what they think when I’m leaving.”

Linus, with his characteristically too-kind responses to those who would tease him incessantly for his commitment to the Great Pumpkin or for hauling around a security blanket to ease his anxiety, and Charlie Brown’s unfailing trust and hope in the humans and canines around him, were antidotes to Lucy and all the mean-spirited children many of us met or were (or both), in our own childhoods.

Charles Schulz died 21 years ago this month, the day before the last Peanuts comic strip ever to be drawn by his hand, would be published. Though it had been a series of small strokes and chemo that made it impossible for him to continue his lifelong ambition, they say it was a heart attack, that killed him. I’d put my money on a heart ache.

“I never dreamed that this was what would happen to me,” Schulz said tearily in an interview upon the announcement of his retirement. “But all of a sudden it’s gone. It’s been taken away from me. I did not take this away from me.”

Who has not heard the broken spirit in those words uttered in a similar fashion, by someone near or far, or even yourself, over the course of the past year? It is precisely Schulz’s deep connection to his own brokenness and that of humanity, that allowed him to speak in a voice that resonated with both children and adults alike. His was not the “wah, wah,” tone he gave to Miss Othmar.

“Being a kid is not easy,” Schulz once reflected from his bones. “It’s a fearful world out there, and the playground is a dangerous place … Most adults forget about these struggles and ignore the problems little kids have. As an adult, you learn how to get around these problems and how to survive. But little kids are struggling with that survival.”

That’s why I was excited to hear new life was given to Snoopy and his humans through Apple TV recently.

The family had never wanted the pen that resulted in the Peanuts gang, being cradled in a hand other than Sparky’s. (Sparky, a comic strip character at the time of Schulz’s birth, became his nickname, long before he ever put pen to paper.)

Jean Schulz, Sparky’s wife of 27 years, says it took a long time to find a partner who was interested in, “keeping it as true to Peanuts as we can — to the comic strip, to my husband’s kind of humour and the humanity that comic strip showed.”

That humour and humanity is what is needed today to sustain our spirits as we face a third wave of this pandemic, and we need to sustain our spirits for the kids.

May we share the same relentless optimism, wonder, and commitment to each other, as Sparky, Snoopy and his humans have illustrated.

Deirdre Pike is a freelance columnist for The Hamilton Spectator. In rare moments of childlike leisure, she can be found surrounded by her comic strip collections including Peanuts,

The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes. In your moments of leisure you can reach her at dpikeatthespec@gmail.com.