Peanuts by Charles Schulz for April 14, 2016

So thus begins the “it was a dark and stormy night” series.

I think Snoopy wrote his first “Dark and Stormy Night” novel in 1965. But the World Famous Novelist bit didn’t really get legs until later.

Too bad Schultz wasn’t still around. Be fun the see Snoopy with a laptop.

How about: “It was a bright and Sunny Day…..!”

Some minutiae: The phrase “it was a dark and stormy night” is the first line of the novel “Paul Clifford” from the early 1800s. Schulz used the phrase with Snoopy because it was an old cliche that came to represent the epitome of bad writing.

OK, I admit to using one of those huge, manual, noisy typewriters to learn to type. After all those years, using a modern computer keyboard is a picnic. I do miss the little “ding” at the end of each side of the page, though….

“It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rang out! A door slammed. The maid screamed. Suddenly, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon! While millions of people were starving, the king lived in luxury. Meanwhile, on a small farm in Kansas, a boy was growing up.”― Charles M. Schulz, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, Snoopy

I know where the keys are. But I don’t know how to make my fingers punch the ones I want.

There are some differences in the keyboards. The typewriter didn’t have a numeral 1 – you used a lower case L. Also the double quote was SHIFT 2 and you needed some finger power to hold down the shift key.

@ChessPirateOne of my favorite Peanuts ever was when Snoopy tied all these plot threads together (or almost all of them, lol). Linus was reading it, and then asked Snoopy, “But what about the king?” Snoopy promptly bonked Linus on the head with his typewriter.

Too bad Snoopy didn’t come up with, “Are You My Mother?” which I read as a little boy. It was one of the “Beginner Books” with the Cat-In-the-Hat logo on it. He might have finally had a success.

If Lucy was in today’s strip she would say: “See? I knew you wouldn’t find her you stupid Beagle!”

xxx

So it was Charlie Brown who first suggested Snoopy to write adventure? That beagle really must be grateful to his owner. Perhaps most of you don’t know it, but it was also Charlie Brown who taught Snoopy to walk on his hind legs.

Oh no! Here beginith the never ending story…

I recently rehabbed my old Remington Quiet-Riter. There is something wonderful about the thunk of the letters onto a piece of paper that you can’t replicate with a computer. Very tactile if not terribly fast.

It was a dark and stormy nightThe bathroom light was dimThere came a crash And then a splashMy God! She’s fallen in!

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents – except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

One sentance

I had a typewriter, an Olympia, but my little fingers weren’t strong enough for either A or : I was 12 back then. It has helped me enough on typing with the computer.