A town-full of characters and cartoons
Cartoons were far from my mind. It was Monday morning and I was on my way to a coffee while my head percolated what had to be done that day. A man stopped in front of me, assuming he was about to ask directions, I stood, ready for his query. But no question came, instead he yapped, “WOOOF-WOOF-WOOF,” then walked away.
True story. I looked back to see barking-man ambling off with a nonchalance that suggested barking at people is normal practice. Perhaps it is, for him. I shook my head and was reminded of the football results: “Real-Madrid: 1 – Surreal-Madrid: Fish.” It was an odd moment that started my day with a piece of surreal theatre. I’ve since seen the man, yet have had no further doggy salutations from him.
He got me thinking of the characters every town has. And more so, how places are characters in themselves. I’ve always seen Cavan as a character, albeit one with multiple personalities. Main street’s Bossy, Farnham Street’s Poshy, Townhall Street’s Arty; I could go on, but will stop at those three, for now. I had my encounter with barky-man on Townhall Street, perhaps he was merely being performance-arty – if I see him again, I’ll ask.
One day soon after my return to Cavan, a woman halted me on Main Street and asked, “Did Pauleen have the baby yet?” I shrugged and asked, “Who’s Pauleen?” I was clearly a case of mistaken identity, yet she looked at me with an air of authoritarian assurance that I was who she believed me to be as she said, “You know fine rightly who she is, the one you were with!”
She flounced off in her bossy boots, leaving me smiling about a back-story she believed I’m involved in. I haven’t seen her since, she probably still believes I’m in denial about my fathering of Pauleen’s child. I should have sang, “…but the kid is not my son.”
The poshest encounter I’ve had on Farnham Street was in the library. One of the huge paintings of Gulliver’s Travels by P.J. Lynch was being taken down for relocation to Virginia Library. It was a difficult task requiring two men and a supervisor. The supervisor was a tall elegant man whom, on being informed of the complexity of the task exclaimed with aplomb, “Good-grief!”
“Good-grief,” it’s over seventy years since an eight-year-old boy first coined that phrase. And, given it’s a phrase I consider quintessentially English, I was surprised to learn it was an American boy who first said it – Charlie Brown in the popular comic-strip: Peanuts. Charlie Brown, the boy created by Charles M. Schulz in 1950. Schulz was 27 when he drew his first four panel newspaper-cartoon-strip featuring characters inspired from his childhood town. Little did he, nor the universe know then, that: Charlie, Patty, Snoopy and his world of characters would continue to endure to this day.
I wondered what the key to ‘Peanuts’ longevity was. And without too much overthinking I concluded two things. Firstly, the characters never grow old, Charlie Brown has been an eight-year old boy for over 70 years. Secondly, familiarity. We all find comfort and security in familiarity. Familiar faces in familiar places expressing concerns and anxieties we can relate to, “My anxieties have anxieties,” said Charlie, in one notable cartoon-strip. Of course there’s the old adage, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”
And many feel that about their town at some point. Yet, as we grow older there’s always a return to the place and characters of our childhood; if not in person, then certainly in mind, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
Every adage has its opposite counterpart.
Talking of town characters, I received a message on social media from a lady alerting me to a Cavan character I was unaware of, “Is this fella still welcoming people to Cavan at the bus station?”
She accompanied her post with a photo of said fella. On a damp and drizzly Monday morning, I popped down. Seeing him still there made me smile.
I’ve christened him: Bob, the bus stop bear. I suspect his tenure at the bus station might not have the longevity of Charlie Brown and his chums. That said, he put me in a cartoonish frame of mind which made my Monday, happy.
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