Channeling Chester Gould

As a kid, I fell in love with the Sunday Funnies. So many, all in color to read over and over again. I had favorites then that I've retained into my dotage, and not just 'Classic Peanuts' but work like Prince Valiant (one of the tie-breakers in my wife's 'pick only one Sunday paper subscription' contest when we first got here).

Others have lost their way, Zippy the Pinhead, while others disappeared as their syndication deals expired or the people who drew them or sometimes both. I followed Blondie when Chic Young drew it but have no idea what happened to Steve Canyon. I mourned the end of Bloom County and still get teary-eyed when reminiscing about Calvin and Hobbes.

I loved Dick Tracy. Chester Gould (Babs' first father-in-law, not) created implausible villains capable of impossible evil and only lantern-jawed Dick Tracy stood between the malevolent malefactors and the slumbering townspeople (whoever they were).

I was thinking of both Chester and Dick when I came across this story from MSNBC. Perhaps the 'perp' was attempting to call attention to Breast Cancer Awareness Month; again, perhaps not. Of course, he stole nothing. Where would he put it?

And how can you not love the caption under the stills? "Parts of the photos are blurred to obscure unidentified parts sticking out of the bikini, a police spokeswoman said." Trust me, ma'am, those parts are neither obscured nor unidentified.

And then you have this pair, proving Newton's theory of gravity. I can recall Colonel Chris C (USA. Ret) launching a SCRD shortly after assuming command at American Forces Network. SCRD stood for Shopping Cart Repatriation Drive. AFN was located across the street from Frankfurt military community commissary and exchange (the PX) and, of course, 'the world famous Topper Club' (I've forgotten where the Class VI store was).

Many of the single service members assigned to AFN lived on the third floor at Bertramstrasse 6 and would push shopping carts loaded with payday purchases across the street, uber den strasse, take the purchases upstairs and leave the carts as an informal welcoming committee in the front parking lot. Eventually they'd wind up under windows of the sports and news department overlooking the garages in the back, but Colonel Chris would not be denied and eventually triumphed.

I mention that because I concede I will never understand why these rocket scientists did this but I am trying to wrap my brain around how hurling a cart from a fourth story of a parking garage constitutes fun. I guess when you're lost in the supermarket any road home, or close to it, is a good one.
-bill kenny