Benjamin L. Clark, writer

6 May 20226 May 2022

Bookshop Memories: A Novel Idea – Lincoln, Nebraska

A Novel Idea – Lincoln, NE

A Novel Idea opened in the early 1990s downtown, closer to the University of Nebraska’s campus than most of the other used bookstores in town. Downtown Lincoln was changing. It was becoming a destination for people who had moved to the suburbs a generation earlier. It was gentrifying. However, this area closest to the university has long been filled with various commercial enterprises. Bars thrived, of course, but now other smaller shops were opening. Even little shops you could generously describe as boutiques. A Novel Idea seems to have been established when increased pedestrian traffic began to grow, and not just on Nebraska football game days.

The shop featured at least one cat that I recall, except that it existed. I don’t remember the cat’s name. The workers were friendly, and I don’t know if I ever met the owners, but maybe those friendly smiles were from them. I didn’t go there often. It seemed more like a “standard used bookstore,” if that makes sense. Where you could find a book that is still in print, just cheaper than the original cover price. A good place to find a classic, not so much the strange and unexpected, for the book you could not conceive of existing. It was a good place to check if you had a specific book you were looking for. They did not seem to specialize in anything in particular. They did not keep a large stock of old books.

The clientele also skewed younger than the other downtown shops, probably due to its proximity to the University of Nebraska’s main campus. So, it was a better place to find pretty, smart hippy girls who wore tank tops without bras and sometimes didn’t shave their armpits. If you were looking for such people in the ‘90s.

One of the other things I recall was that the older books were kept in the very low-ceilinged basement, and I can remember bumping my head pretty hard down there once. I may have even done it more than once. Also, the basement’s cement floor must be one of the waviest ever poured. I had worked on some paving crews around then and never could quite figure out what would make it like that.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

18 April 202218 April 2022

Bookshop Memories: Bluestem Books, Lincoln, Nebraska

Bluestem Books – Lincoln, NE

Growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the 1980s and ’90s, there was a bookshop in the scuzzier part of downtown in an old brick building, under a towering overpass that took you out to the interstate on the east side of town. It was a tiny corner of our modest town that felt like a much bigger city. There were pigeons.

Bluestem Books was an institution by then. There were always cats around, and no one cared if you stayed and browsed or just sat and read for hours on end. Even as a teen doing his best grunge impression day in and out browsing the history, essays, and mystery sections. There was an old green chair in a little nook that was a coveted spot. People would circulate through the store, accidentally sneaking up on one another because there were virtually no open lines of sight because of the tight, full shelves.

The building was also ancient, for Lincoln. The wavy glass in the drafty windows and crumbly brick gave the building a charming derelict feel it may have deserved. Doorways had been knocked through brick walls, giving the shop a rambling layout. The wood floors creaked dreadfully, though muffled under threadbare, faded rugs. Old cast iron pipes passed through here and there, their purposes unclear. Strange metal fittings studded the concrete vault ceilings in places. I wondered if portions of the bookshop had once served as a meat locker or some other weigh-station for once-living things headed out on the nearby rail lines.

It was always warm in there. It probably had more to do with an old boiler heating system, but that was my recollection of it. Going there on an intensely cold day, howling winds that wanted to slam the door on you as you wrenched it open. The door may have been kept attached to the building with a long, old storm door spring to help it eventually snap shut. The spring sang a stretched-out springy twang and thwack back into the door as it closed. There was a faded, soiled note taped to the door with instructions on how to use the door. “Hold on tight on windy days,” or “Don’t let the door slam,” or something like that.

Near that old green chair were a couple of short shelves dedicated to series like Everyman’s Library and The Modern Library — small vintage uniform editions of classics and some contemporary fiction, “contemporary” meaning 1920-1965 or so, arguably the heyday of such series. It was there that I saw the Modern Library series as a series — the recognizable books were a great size and affordable, and they looked cool on the shelf. Looking cool on the shelf is a virtue we don’t admit often enough as book lovers.

I don’t remember if I bought any Modern Library books there that early … I may have. I never had a lot of money, but I sometimes had a job after school, so I had a little spending money in my teens. I don’t remember buying much there in my teenage years, really. But it felt good to be somewhere where I could buy books.

After leaving Lincoln for college, I would try to come back whenever I was back in town. I’d bring friends sometimes but usually come alone. It was the kind of bookshop that in some ways was better to go alone.

Reading one of the John Dunning biblio-mystery novels featuring his rare bookseller/ detective, Cliff Janeway, which takes place mostly around Denver, I sat upright one night where toward the end they mention Bluestem Books in Lincoln by name. My book world had been so insular, so much part of my niner life that it was strange to think this author had been there too and wrote about it, and it came into my hands. I took my battered paperback down to Scott at Bluestem and had him autograph it. He laughed and told me he’d had a few others, but not in a long time.

Around 2000, they added a bookshop dog, who was a delightful addition, and quite a departure from the cats they had. A floofy friendly thing a little less broad than an ottoman and about as tall named Don Diego. I’m not a cat person, but I remember one cat named Thurber who had been awarded employee of the month for several months (and years) running. But then Diego was different. He was eventually awarded the title of Director of Customer Relations, a role to which he was perfectly suited. He was a Havanese, a breed of dog I had to look up later after I’d asked the owners about him. “He’s hypoallergenic!” they claimed. Don Diego’s grand-niece Maribel is now filling in since his retirement.

Bluestem Books magnet featuring Havanese dog, Don Diego — Don Diego de la Bluestem. And the old address under the overpass.

Even by the mid-1990s, things were changing in downtown Lincoln’s western district, soon to be ubiquitously known as “The Haymarket.” The thrift stores and vacant storefronts that were home to the homeless and pigeons were beginning to change. Fresh brown paper went over the windows, and work trucks began to fill the alleyways. Eventually, it became Lincoln’s hotspot, to the betterment of local tax revenues, no doubt, but losing its seedy charm.

Bluestem had to move too, eventually but managed to find a larger location not too far away, but it’ll always be the old building in the shade of an overpass I used to think was a meat-locker by the railroad tracks on the bad side of downtown that I’ll hold in my heart.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

15 April 202222 April 2022

Bookshop Memories: Barnes & Noble – Lincoln, Nebraska

Barnes & Noble – Lincoln, NE

When Barnes and Noble arrived in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the spring of 1994, they staked out a huge chunk of prime real estate right on “O” Street. It cleared a fiefdom from the car dealership that ran nearly uninterrupted for eight blocks on both sides of Lincoln’s main street. This giant new store was a big deal. Not only did they bring easy access to a cosmopolitan newsstand, but of course, that hallmark and highmark of modern western culture: Starbucks coffee. Finally, we could buy fancy, expensive coffee drinks and not have to go all the way downtown for the pleasure. And it was from a brand we had heard of on television.

My Dad, who owns a small business, had rented a pleasant office nearby several years earlier on a bank building’s fourth floor. He was thrilled. Who knows how many hours he killed there during the week looking through car magazines, bringing home the occasional Hemmings Motor News or the aspirational DuPont Registry for us to get a glimpse into how wealthy people live. “This house has its own waterpark!” One night he came home with an espresso machine. It wasn’t one sold by Starbucks, I’m sure. However, we cannot doubt the inspiration for buying the contraption. This strange, exotic machine stayed in its box in the pantry for some time, though I don’t know why. Perhaps we were intimidated by it.

One day I was home playing hooky, sometime in the seventh grade, and I dug the machine out and plugged it in for the first time. By then, I was regularly drinking sweet milky coffee concoctions. It was time to learn about the real thing. I read the manual, opened the little packet of pre-ground, measured coffee pods, and let it rip. Soon, I was dissolving Werther’s Original candies to mix in. Italian branded flavored syrups had already appeared in our home to make Italian sodas, so the idea to sweeten it up wasn’t a new one. I had one waiting for Dad when he came home. I was lucky my head didn’t explode with what was probably a near-lethal amount of caffeine in my young body.

When Barnes & Noble came to town, going to the bookshop became less remarkable. In those years, the store was clean, cool, and bright—a respite in a hectic day, not a dive into some subject, writer, or experience. We were just going to grab a coffee, maybe browse a little and go.

Festooned with holiday decorations and a table of ladies ready to wrap gifts, I quickly made it my preferred place to buy gifts during the holidays. The big wood double doors, with the little panes of glass, swung easy and offered a warm welcome in the winter. The ladies were from some good society doing good works. Their wrapping paper was thick and subdued, and it was only a donation to have them quickly wrap up all these rectangles. I’ve never been great at wrapping gifts, so it was an easy choice.

It was the ’90s, I was in high school, and I didn’t have much money to spend. So, another thing I loved at Barnes & Noble was that they carried Dover Thrift Editions. If you’re not familiar with this series of books, they are the absolute most cheaply produced paperback books of all time. And with our annual 14-hour drive each way to Michigan for Christmas at my Grandparents’ ahead of me and a weeklong stay with virtually no television and early bedtimes — it was a reading paradise. Yes, I could read our assigned books for school, but I already wanted to read other stuff. And the Dover Thrift copies of Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, and The Hound of the Baskervilles fit easily in my bookbag and only cost a dollar or maybe two each, at the most. B&N would even put them on sale for half-price, so $10 would buy a lot. It was almost as good as the used book sale in the mall’s basement each summer, but these books were *new*.

The wallpaper graphic covers today give me a warm, Christmassy feeling, awakening memories of laying in the rollaway bed in my grandparents’ basement in northwestern Michigan, the little basement well-windows filled with snow diffusing morning daylight bright enough to read by. Grandma cooking a full breakfast upstairs and a few murmured Good Mornings meant the coffee pot was already on its second run.

I didn’t own a lot of new books. Most of the books on my shelves were claimed from my parents’ shelves or bought at the used book sales put on by the retired teachers association. They had books as cheap as 10 cents back then. I could come away with a grocery stack about to split for a few dollars, stuffed with wonderful old Modern Library editions, the solid colored Penguin paperbacks, and anything else that struck my fancy. Writing that memory, in particular, makes me feel like when my grandfather would reminisce about going to the movies, buying a candy bar, taking the streetcar home, and leftover change still clanking in his pocket from the quarter his mother gave him for his outing.

It feels strange to feel nostalgia for Barnes & Noble in the 1990s. Having the behemoth come to town felt like a declaration of war against the small independent shops. However, many of them were just fine in the end. The bookshops at the mall took the brunt of the blow — places like Walden Books and B. Dalton. At least that’s how it looked to a teenager in Lincoln, Nebraska.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

11 April 202217 April 2024

Keith Haring’s trap

“It’s easy to fall into a trap of making things that are in the manner of previous “successful” endeavors — is it a trap?” — Keith Haring, Journals Nov. 1979, page 85.

Cover of Keith Harring's Journals — Cover of Keith Harring’s Journals

Could this be a thing? It’s certainly a thing, but is it on the level of Murphy’s Law? Around May 1st last year, I found a copy of Keith Haring’s Journals visiting a favorite local thrift store (for books). Of course, I had to take it home. I always love a good collection of journals or letters. In my copy, a large paperback by Penguin, there was supposed to be an introduction by Shephard Fairy, but it had been torn out of this copy for some reason. I didn’t notice when I found it. The previous owner otherwise kept it in good shape and tore it out pretty cleanly, so it’s not noticeable, and something tells me I’m not missing much. They also seem to have used white-out across the statement about Fairy’s intro.

So, what about this trap of success? I imagine it should have a name. The [something] Paradox. If there’s not yet a name for this, there should be. The curse of success? Many creators struggle with this and others seem to just roll along, evolving by creating and trying, but every creator is lured back, or at least tempted by what was successful in the past. Especially if that’s how you eat and shelter.

It’s not *my* problem — I don’t have the level of success solely by my own creation and work, but it’s an interesting question. But, as someone who does make things, I want the things I make to be fresh. For my own sake, I want to keep my work fresh, mostly, but also to have a sense of progress, of making and not simply re-making. So, now I must ask myself at various points in a project, “Am I falling into the Haring Trap?”

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

30 December 20213 January 2022

What is a Squib? A little newspaper history

Squib — That’s the word I spent a couple of days trying to find. So, what is a newspaper squib?

The word has a few meanings, and according to Webster’s I’m interested in the least meaningful meaning: “a short humorous or satiric writing or speech, a short news item; esp; FILLER.”

This week, while researching something else, I came upon a sort-of cartoon, but didn’t run as a cartoon as such, but was just … filler. What’s wonderful about being able to browse millions of pages of archival newspapers is the access, but there’s a downside — interpretation. I was curious if any scholarship or just collected thought had been put together around these smallest of memes (in the dictionary sense), but wasn’t sure what to call them to find anything. Often unsigned, there were many that seem to have been distributed by syndicates, and no doubt, some newspaper staff were capable of coming up with their own, as well.

A few examples:

MILITANT MARY — Arguably a single-panel comic, and not a squib, but the line of definition between them is hazy at best.

DAILY BIRTHDAY PARTY — “George Horton, the noted American diplomat, who has represented the interests of this country in Greece and Turkey for many years, and who is the author of a great number of very good books …”

“Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote his famous “Rasselas” in the evenings of a single week, to meet the expenses of his mother’s funeral.”

6 April 20216 April 2021

Michael Kupperman’s All the Answers and Child Performers in Monster Trucks

Small monster truck, Skull Krusher Mini, in static display, shown atop a crushed silver BMW sedan.

This weekend I read All the Answers by Michael Kupperman. It’s a fascinating graphic novel about Michael grappling with his father’s previous fame and pain. His father, Joel Kupperman, was a child celebrity in the 1940s and ’50s and the fallout thereafter, into Micheal’s life was not only painful but confusing. It’s wonderfully drawn, capturing the feel of the 1940s and the feeling of memory, of reconstructing from scant information. Parts of it look half-remembered, or places where a newspaper clipping stands though there is no personal memory. As a historian reading this, I recognized these sensations in the art.

Cover of the book All the Answers by Michael Kupperman. — All the Answers by Michael Kupperman

Micheal Kupperman‘s drawing is excellent (this has really never been a question). His own appearance throughout, of himself, is of a haunted man — at least to me. And that’s what this story is really about. The ghosts we live with, the ghosts that surround us, the ghosts of our own making. Ghosts that become ancient in our lives as generational pain passes on, reconfiguring itself into whatever form it needs to survive into the next generation.

Drawn in stark black-and-white, this story is quite gray. Gradations of memory, impression, and hunch. Kupperman has extracted the history as best he could, given his father’s refusal to talk about his experiences as a child star of the show Quiz Kids. And later, his father’s detachment from his past as he slipped into dementia.

The images Kupperman has drawn representing the promotional photographs of his father as a boy on Quiz Kids stand out in my mind. Laid into the context of his father’s experience and how it affected him and how that experience hurt him, and how his father passed down that pain generationally was fascinating and heartbreaking.

A really great conversation with Michael Kupperman and Noah Van Skiver is here for Kupperman’s reflections and observations by Van Skiver, who is someone in the know to ask good questions. I was cruising through Van Skiver’s channel (also recommended) and stumbled on Kupperman’s and immediately borrowed the book from my library.

Of course, the book was fresh in my mind when I went to see some monster trucks this weekend. Not that I expected them to connect, but a reader’s life is funny that way.

The Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa hosts monster truck events with some regularity. We had not yet been able to attend one, but with a free calendar for the Easter weekend, why not? Instead of the big stadium-style performance, it was a more subdued “drive-thru adventure.” We weren’t sure what that could mean, but the weather was nice and thought it may be a fun enough outing to give it a try. I’m glad we did. Our five-year-old loved it.

We drove through an out-and-back loop at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. Classic rock and revved recordings of monster truck rallies of yore throbbed through huge speakers along the road, drowning out the short audio clips prepared by the organizers to play from their event website through my phone over my car stereo.

We were awed by the monster truck made from an old firetruck, ate churros, and sipped strawberry lemonade with all the windows down and the sunroof open.

Then when we saw these cute, small monster trucks. They had information about each of them printed on banners hung by each truck. It took a moment to realize what I was reading fully. According to the banners, the drivers are children. The idea of child performers came crashing back down on me. I don’t know that these kids who drive monster trucks are child celebrities. Admittedly, I don’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of the subculture of monster trucking. Maybe these kids know they’re super lucky to get to do that work, to have that experience. And maybe it’s niched down enough not to draw the attention that becomes such a burden on young performers. At least, that’s what I’ll assume.

But if there’s a Joel Kupperman of the mini monster trucks, I hope they get some hugs and space to be a kid. More than a kid who gets to destroy stuff with a custom-built monster truck. I wish young Joel could have had a turn in one. Maybe we all should.

banner that reads Skull Krusher Mini — Skull Krusher Mini monster truck

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

15 May 202015 May 2020

Book Review: The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Cover of The Library Book by Susan Orlean

By Benjamin L. Clark

The Library Book by Susan Orlean — This book was on some great end-of-year lists last year and for good reason. I had it on my shelf for a while waiting for “someday,” and, well, someday came. It’s an amazing book. Is it very, very long-form journalism, is it popular history? A twist on True Crime? Where does that line even exist? It doesn’t matter. Deeply, passionately researched, this is a love story. Not simply to the beautiful Central Library in downtown Los Angeles, but to libraries everywhere, to the librarians who made and make them what they are, and most of all to the libraries of our hearts.

Burning the Library

Los Angeles Public Library, courtesy, California Historical Society, CHS2015.1897

The story of the 1986 fire that became one of the largest single-event losses of print culture in human history is the burning hoop that keeps this story together, fueled by the clear-eyed curiosity of Susan Orlean. Orlean is present in the story, but with so much uncertainty around the fire, and around the man who was arrested for it, her voice is the anchor readers need. Harry Peak was arrested for starting the fire, but not charged and eventually released has a slippery historical record, but a fascinating and in the end, sympathetic story. He died in 1993. Though the case remains unsolved, Orlean has done an incredible job taking the scraps and bits, talking to the right people who still remember important things, and puts it all together, not only cohesively and effectively, but in a touching and humane way.

I’ve liked the L.A. Library for a long time, too. I’ve never been there or anything, but I like the architect who designed it, Bertram Goodhue. He also designed the capitol building of my home state of Nebraska. He is an interesting person as well, and his role isn’t ignored either.

What Didn’t I Like?

Nothing. It was an incredible story well told. I’m sure Orlean could have filled four thick volumes of footnotes for all of it, but didn’t need to. I can see some readers may not see the point of going back to the L.A. Public Library’s very genesis, and down through the years along the way, but I found it fascinating! There are several other people who should have a lot more written about them! What we got was not enough! I kept hopping over to Wikipedia to look up more about individuals mentioned, looking for other connections.

Reading Such A Book “In Times Like These”

“Under our current circumstances,” “in these unprecedented times,” whatever your preferred euphemism for sheltering at home during a novel virus pandemic that has already taken 300,000 lives worldwide, it’s a strange time to review a book at all. Especially one about a disaster. But I found this book to be strangely calming. Orlean brings order from an avalanche of charred, damp, broken bits. I also miss my local library. Also, as curator of a museum, I couldn’t help but feel encouraged — we’re going to be OK too.

The book was also a balm for how open-ended our “current circumstances” are. The library fire burned for several hours, but the destruction and unanswered questions lasted for years. I can’t imagine working in the conditions the people there endured for so long. Would the library be rebuilt? Would the institution even survive? Could the city even afford to rebuild if there was political will to do so? Spoiler alert: In the end, the library was restored, expanded, and is thriving.

Who Should Read It?

Bibliophiles of any stripe, anyone interested in the history of Los Angeles. Creative people, people pushing nostalgia for the 1980s. People facing disasters. Survivors. Culture vultures, architecture nerds, the bookish, the lonely, the weird kids. Friends of the Library, Museum, Symphony, Theater, whatever. It’s a great book and you should read it too.

Buy This Book From An Indie Bookshop

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

13 March 2020

Stumped museum curator — can you help?

Late 19th Century mystery card printed with the letter a and numeral 10 at the top and the names G. Robbins, Miss Harrison, J. F. Hull, Gracie Battis. And at the bottom of the card, a capital M.

I’ve worked in History and museums for the better part of 20 years …

So, it was natural my cousin sent someone to me when they found something odd while removing an old chimney in an old house in Nebraska. “What is it?” they asked. It was a little card with some words and letters and numbers printed on it. The longer I looked, the less sense it made. I had no idea. In fact, it’s been a few years since they asked, and I still have no idea.

Running across this photo again I’d kept for reference, I got back in touch with the finder and asked if he had any answers — Still no.

I’d lost any details I’d had, so he kindly sent me more info:
The card is 2″ wide, 3.5″ tall and totally blank on the back. Much smaller than I assumed it would be.

With an ornamental border it reads:

a 10
G. Robbins
Miss Harrison,
J. F. Hull
Gracie Battis
M

And that’s all I know about it. Do you have any ideas?
Link to the biggest version of image I have: https://www.flickr.com/photos/benjclark/49592317168

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

9 March 202015 May 2020

Book Review: The Pigeon Tunnel by John le Carré

https://www.flickr.com/photos/augustusswift/4514760392.jpg

JOHN LE CARRE ( David Cornwell) English Writer 1931— by N.C. Mallory (CC)

John le Carré (David Cornwell) says that every one of his books was titled The Pigeon Tunnel at some point in the early stages. He finally nails a book worthy of the title with this memoir of his writing life, his time working for British Intelligence, and between the lines, a sense of the man behind the stories of espionage and intrigue.

Le Carré tells stories about meeting Arafat, about fellow author and intelligence operative Graham Greene, and letting Robert Redford borrow his Swiss ski chalet, which he’d built with the proceeds of his first smash hit book The Spy Who Came in from the Cold… But le Carré doesn’t splay these stories before readers, pushing his own life before us like a wordy, mercenary paparazzi, exploiting his limelight-adjacent life. He also comes across as a man trying to sort things out, but barely mentions marriages and children. Perhaps out of respect for their privacy, or perhaps because they’ve been covered in past interviews. I don’t know, but for me, it’s a curious absence.

Some stories are well-polished yarns le Carré has no doubt shared for many years over drinks, at readings, or over dinner. Like the time he was with Joseph Brodsky when he found out he won the Nobel Prize. Or being summoned by Margaret Thatcher to Number 10.

Then there are the stories of his father. Ronnie Cornwell, le Carré’s father, was a con man of the very highest order. A few of his schemes and cons are outlined here by le Carré, but again, as a man trying to make heads or tails of what information he’s been able to gather, and willing to share. You can almost see him shaking his head throughout the retelling. However, it does give readers a glimpse into how the son of con-man would be drawn into the life of intelligence.

Author John le Carré speaking at the German Embassy in London in June 2017. — John le Carré speaking at the German Embassy in London in June 2017.

It’s an excellent book. You won’t find much of “the writer’s life” type of musings, but I doubt many readers will be all that interested in that. No, over his long and productive life, I get a sense that le Carré has been just as busy managing his intellectual property rights, film rights, and fighting off lawsuits and inquiries to make the actual writing of fiction a wonderful respite when he’s able to get down to it. I recommend Pigeon Tunnel if you’re interested in his books, Cold War stories, or Hollywood.

And about that title. After reading his explanation, which takes readers along on a gambling escapade in Monte Carlo, I can see just about any one of his books carrying the title, and it’s meaning, very well. It’s perhaps the aptest metaphor I’ve read in a very long time for not only the life of people working in intelligence but also for writers. I don’t think Le Carré sat on the title all these years because he kept finding titles that suited his novels better. I think he knew it was a title with only one story worthy of it: His own.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

12 February 202023 April 2021

Remembering Charles M. Schulz 20 Years Later

Charles M. Schulz at the drawing board, 1956

It’s been 20 years since Charles M. “Sparky” Schulz died. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long ago. As tributes and remembrances pour forth today, I can’t help but remember that day too.

I remember it pretty well when I read the news, though for me it was otherwise unremarkable. I was a Sophomore at York College in York, Nebraska. As was my routine, when I was “home” on campus for the weekend, I went to the library when it finally opened after lunch to read the Sunday newspapers.

It was cold. In rural Nebraska, the winters are cold and February can be the worst. My friends and I were excitedly planning a trip to the west coast for Spring Break. It would be my first trip there.

Going into the library, the periodical racks weren’t far from the entrance. At that time (perhaps still?) there were a couple of couches and comfortable chairs where one could relax and read. It was one of my favorite places on campus.

The display was such that you could see several front pages at once and more than one newspaper had the news that Charles Schulz had passed away. I probably read the story, but I don’t remember anything about it. Maybe I didn’t read it first. Maybe like millions of other readers, I found the comic section to see the final comic from the man himself. I remember that final strip crystal clear, realizing as I read the message over and over that he announced his retirement, he somehow knew it meant his life was ending. It still brings a tear to my eye all these years later.

Peanuts was on the front page of the Sunday comics section, above the fold in our newspaper. It had earned the spot long before I was born as the most popular, most syndicated comic of all time. That day, I remember also wondering what happens to comic strips when the creator passes away, not knowing that the comic section in my hands included several strips by artists who had died long ago.

Of course, back then I had no idea I would one day get to know the life and art of Charles Schulz on a much deeper level than as a more-days-than-not reader of the funnies. Since becoming the curator of the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California two years ago today, I’ve read pretty much all the books about Schulz, I’ve watched all the interviews, I’ve read all his comics. I’ve read his personal correspondence and squinted into his family snapshots. I’ve met his kids and have gotten to know his widow. I can recognize his handwriting. In that time, I’ve gotten to know him about as well as I can not actually knowing the man. Schulz was a lot of things, and to me, I’ve only become a bigger fan.

Thanks for everything, Sparky.