Right up my Alley.
The comic strip was on a U. S. postage stamp in the 90s.
We are headed to sunny Arizona for a few days, where it's 95 (too hot) but looking forward to relief from the too-cool (and gray) here. Like I have said before, though, April is a real tease, a practical joker, because today again we had a BEE-U-tiful spring day before the forecasted week of drizzle. Porridge too hot, porridge too cold, what'd'ya gonna do?
Frank King, born April 9, 1883 in Wisconsin, created the comic strip Gasoline Alley. I learned it was the first American cartoon in which the characters actually aged, and is the second longest strip in America. (Can you name the first?)
I don't look at the strip anymore - not sure I knew it still was running - but one of my strongest memories as a young child involves it. When I was younger than five, (because we moved from that home when I reached kindergarten), my thirty-something bachelor uncle Earl would come over on Sunday mornings and spread the funnies out on the dining room floor after breakfast. I have vivid memory of sunlight coming in through the window as I laid on my stomach next to him and he read the tales of Walt and Skeezis, the adopted foundling of Gasoline Alley to me. I remember eager anticipation every week for his Sunday visit. He must have read other comics too, (where else could I have fallen in love with Little Lulu?) but it is that strip that sticks in my head. They were such lovely moments. My uncle lived to his nineties and only in the past ten or so years left us. We didn't see each other often, but in occasional hometown visits with him and Aunt Hazel, it was clear that he was forever the kindest, gentlest, and sweetest of souls.
Ah! back in the good old days (1995) when postage was 32 cents. A bargain then (and a pretty good deal now, too, I really believe. I am a post office/snail mail fan)
Penni was painted by me, for the 2018 Best Friends Calendar, and belongs to the Brown Family.