Agnes by Tony Cochran for May 12, 2015

I was definitely seeing this coming, though it took place a little earlier than I expected….But that makes Grandma about the age I surmised, since that road trip with the Merry Pranksters happened in 1964 or 65, and she was probably in her mid 20’s. They weren’t teenagers on that bus… Kesey was 30-ish.So… Agnes’ mother (or possibly father) would have been born in ‘65 or ’66….(and Grandma was apparently still a rocker 10 years later)We still have to figure that nobody has aged much in the dozen years since this strip began in 2002:Agnes about 10, missing parent about 37, Grandma in her early 60’s.. What does amaze me is that, after all these years of church, restraint, and enforced propriety, and what I thought of as trying to lead her granddaughter in a safer direction, Grandma is suddenly telling Agnes about it!

There are after all only a limited number of stories in this universe. But it behooves any author to make the reading/listening public care who those stories happen to. Shakespeare was mostly not original either. But he’s gotten mostly good reviews by making us care about his characters.

Did Grandma get hold of some of BC’s toadstools from yesterday?.8^)

https://explore.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/show/sixties/walkthrough/kenkesey.Interesting article. All the way at the bottom is a photo of the Merry Pranksters. I think I see Grandma!

Funny…..all us kids just called it “the yellow bus”.

It was “Furthur.”

It looks like she hasn’t been very “merry” in a long time.

…..and yet you’re reading it.

Dogday… no, beatniks. At least, in 1964, on that bus, cos there were no hippies yet, not in general parlance.

Ken Kesey later called himself the bridge between the two, too young to be a beatnik, too old to be a hippie. As for caring about the characters, of course we do, or we wouldn’t read their stories every day.Ever started a book and put it down cos you just couldn’t find anybody in the story to care about? Sad? No, it’s life-affirming… proves we’re humans, not droids. That’s why society works… because humans have an innate tendency to care about other creatures, whether they’re other humans, animals, or fictional characters. We play with dolls and stuffed animals as children, give them names, pretend to feed them… even though we know they’re toys….in fact, I worry about children who abuse dolls. Meanwhile, some of the people who think it’s pathetic to care about comic characters probably play online games where they become one.

I think people who can’t bring themselves to care about fictional characters are pretty sad.

Wow, thanks SallyLin!After I wrote that I thought it was silly cos nobody would ever see it… but I left it cos I had to say it anyway.

Chuck beat me to it. The bus’s name was “FURTHUR” – deliberately misspelled.

The bus is immortalized in the Grateful Dead’s song The Other One which says

Escaping through the lily fields, I came across an empty spaceIt trembled and exploded, left a bus stop in its placeThe bus came by and I got on, that’s when it all beganThere was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of the bus to never ever land

Chuck beat me to it. The bus’s name was “FURTHUR” – deliberately misspelled.

The bus is immortalized in the Grateful Dead’s song The Other One which says

Escaping through the lily fields, I came across an empty spaceIt trembled and exploded, left a bus stop in its placeThe bus came by and I got on, that’s when it all beganThere was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of the bus to never ever land

Grandma really got around

We still wonder why Granny is choosing to tell this now. And is her memory reliable?