Peanuts by Charles Schulz for March 02, 1978

Word has it, that Peppermint Patty’s tendency to fall asleep in class, was because of her dad working late(and she didn’t have a mother—speaking of which, real quick, to this day, I sometimes wonder whatever had become of Patty’s mom, when she joined the strip), anyway, because her dad worked late, and thus Patty was scared about being in the house alone, so she would wait up for him, before going to bed. Again, to this day I do wonder sometimes, whatever had happened to her mother(she was motherless, when she joined the strip, in late summer 1966)-in fact, I even read somewhere, that Schulz himself actually asked that question—“Did her parents get a divorce, and in which case, her dad would have gotten custody, or is her dad a widower?” Well, we’ll never know, now, but, anyway, with Patty having a single parent who worked late, making Patty reluctant to go to bed while there by herself, was what had accounted for her constantly falling asleep in class.