Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 17, 2023

Don’t worry, Zonker. The losers are too embarrassed to come in your presence.

“It just is for one evening.”

Recently at not an annual reunion but at a local collection of alumina gathering before our team’s hockey game, all the young folks were unmasked and full of chit-chat, but the white haired souls were off in a corner and only unmasked for the beer and free appetizers.

Winner of the George Hamilton Cocoa Butter Open

Zonk isn’t living with his mom, sitting in a call centre under a mountain of student debt. Winner.

Winner or loser is mostly about self perception. Don’t pay attention to the naysayers.

Delusion springs eternal

Sunday’s Sherman’s Lagoon was about his wife’s bad casserole. When I drew a parallel with our church pot lucks, I was cautioned about anonymity. My response was as pictured above, they would never assume I was speaking about them.

I have an interesting question. To the best of my memory, Trudeau was drawing his strips in 1971 or ‘72 while I was in college—I read them whenever I could find a comics page on campus. But Mike, Zonker, BD, etc. was in the class of 1983? (Per yesterday’s strip?) In BD’s case I can make allowances, because I remember him going to Vietnam in the middle of his studies. But it seems like an AWFULLY long college career for the others. I guess it was just the magic of comics—after all, the Peanuts kids were kids for nearly 50 years.

Zonk—-if an ROTC man appproaches you,don’t make eye contact.

Just stay away from mirrors, Zonk.

Two thoughts:

Sometimes what appears to be losing is someone who has chosen a different path than you.

There are times when in order to become who you really are, you must pass through a period of time of being who you are not. In other words in order to appreciate winning, you must know what losing feels like.

Reunions are a bad place to “re-frame” your life accomplishments. People gloss over things like failed businesses, violently ended marriages, and jail time. (Same with any online comparisons of your life to others.)

Hmm…At 76 I’m pretty sure I’ve done nothing with my life. It’s not a big deal. I’ve pretty much met my ambitions.

I still have classmates trying to convince me I’m STILL that ignorant 19 year-old kid!

Zonk is possibly the character in Doonesbury that I would most enjoy having a beer with. I’d buy, of course.

Even the losers, get lucky some times….

Tom Petty