My Twilight Zone Moment

Here's a strange but true story to kill off the month of June. Only a few people have heard the details of what I'm about to blather on here about, so consider yourself privileged.

Back in the early 80's I was working as a letter carrier for the Canada Post Corporation. I'm somewhere in that group photo above. As a rookie on the job, I did not yet have a route of my own to deliver. My purpose in their grand scheme of things, was to replace any carrier that decided, because of sickness or injury or direction of the wind, that he/she was unable to perform his/her duties that day. While this made for a few stressful mornings (learning someone else's sortation case) it also widened my knowledge of the city and never allowed me to get totally bored with any one gig.

NOWadays, carriers are not required to return to the postal station at a certain time for a lunch break. They are allowed to keep delivering the mail until the bag's empty and the job's done. But such was not the norm in the old days. As was expected of me, I would return to our base of operations around the noon hour after completing the morning half of my rounds.

On this one particular day, I decided to spend the lunch period out in my car, listening to the radio. A phone-in talk show on 'the giant' CKNW. This is where things started getting weird but I didn't know it yet. A female caller was on the air complaining about the post office. She was annoyed because she'd now been waiting 3 weeks for a letter from her sister in Saskatchewan. (In the good ol' days before emails.) Since her comments had nothing to do with the current discussion, the host of the show told her she was 'off topic' and swiftly cut her off. It was mildly entertaining (because of the postal connection) but I quickly dismissed it.


Soon after, I was out on the beat again completing the PM portion of my route which began on Ashwood Drive. I had a satchel full of mail and it was a bright spring day on a quiet street. I'd only completed delivery to the first six homes of the first block before I encountered a woman standing alone outside the front door of the seventh house. She was obviously the home owner and as I approached her, she spoke thusly: "I've been waiting three weeks for a letter from my sister in Saskatchewan."

Well. I mean. There was a sudden shiver running up the back of my neck. Even more strange, it felt like my eyes were starting to water. Not because of any poor misplaced letter from Saskatchewan, but because... this was the lady... I'd just heard this very same woman on my car radio less than 20 minutes earlier. Voicing the exact same lament. In fact, I didn't hesitate to tell her of this coincidence. I said: "I just heard you on the radio less than 20 minutes ago."

Now... had I stopped at that point to put myself in HER shoes - to try and appreciate the moment from HER side - I'd probably have seen that it wasn't exactly the same bizarre oddity that it was for me. Tens of thousands of people probably heard her yaking on the radio that day; it wouldn't surprise her to learn that I was just another one of many. But for ME, the situation had a certain Twilight Zone feel to it. For me, there were more darts that had to hit the bullseye before the situation I now found myself in could take place. (I'd like to know what the odds were, and why can't I ever win at the lottery instead?)

To answer your burning question - no, I did NOT have the famous missing letter from the sister in Saskatchewan to give to the woman that day (it was probably never mailed in the first place) and I could tell that the whole incident had not made much of a dent on her at all. It was just another frustrating hour in her frustrating life. But for me, it dominated my thoughts for the rest of the day. I can only assume that I finished the route without making any major mistakes and that I somehow returned safely to the postal station later that afternoon.

Amputated Human Digits

I was faced with at least TWO separate instances of censorship during the original prime time run of the comic strip '42 Plain Street'. In both cases, the drawings in question had left my desk on their way to Japan without any hint in my mind that they'd be considered unsuitable - and ultimately rejected from the publishing stage. I'd never faced the cold, harsh landscape of cartoon rejection before. Well, at least not in the arena of censorship. And to be perfectly honest, after being informed of the offending episodes, it seemed more silly than serious to me.

Don't forget, these were only cartoon scribbles, with storylines limited in scope to the daily goings-on of a less than complicated family in an average neighborhood. Who knew there could be strict boundaries to bland set-ups like that. But for the record, I'll present one of those rejected strips here. First, in its complete unedited condition, before any alterations to the 'red-flagged' script had been performed, (click to enlarge) followed by the re-write. Or re-cartoon.

To save the episode (and the artwork I'd already inked in) from the scrap heap, I took the whole shebang back to the drawing board and eliminated the final 3 frames of dialogue. Then I approached the same visual ending from a new angle. Softening the blow of the amputated human digits (which was merely the sly SUGGESTION of such an outcome) with the less than satisfying remark about Jack's humour level. As displayed in its truncated form here.

It should be noted that the late Jay Kennedy of King Features Syndicate in New York (a big wig in the comic community) ALSO commented on the violent nature of this episode when it arrived on his desk with 48 other episodes of my strip for North American syndicate consideration.

I'm afraid I still don't quite get it. Whyfore the concern and rebuff? Are these 'higher-ups' worried that youngsters reading the strip will run out and try the same stunt at home with THEIR lawnmowers? I could easily understand the issue if my drawings had included the actual slicing off of wrist, lower arm and individual fingers in a fireworks display of flying body parts. That sort of ending might well have been accused of crossing some invisible line of cartoon violence allow-ability. I could live with THAT decision. But the mere implying of a possible outcome regarding the fixing of lawnmowers (without turning off the power) shouldn't necessarily be tarred with the same rejection slip. Or is I wrong on that?

We can showboat the other rejected strip on these pages at another time. There's only so much talk about severed body parts (cartoon or otherwise) that any blog reader can stand in one sitting. Or sit in one standing. I should mention though, that the OTHER rejected strip did not contain anything NEAR the disturbing mental imagery this one did. No; it's crime was related to the breakfast table and the much loved standard of pancakes with syrup. Drat, I've said too much already.

Too Old For Anything New

So. Where were we? Oh yeah. So, I've been an active playing member of this local softball team since the late 70s. (That's me - top row, left side, no hat.) Over the years, we've sailed our ship under a number of flags - from 'Gaffers' to 'Elco' to 'Veterans' but, here in the twilight of our careers, I think we've finally settled on that last name for as long as the club wants to remain afloat. No need to change it again because nobody's sponsoring us anymore and heck - we're just getting too old for anything new.

We finally shelled out for a more professional look when we transferred into our latest body armour (jerseys). However, during the past 20 years, I'd been asked to provide design suggestions for at least two of the uniform crests we've worn. In both those cases, my quick sketches seem to have been accepted without any alteration or tweaking. (Shouldn't they at least have a committee meeting on these things?) The first 'Elco' crest was in a simple script lettering style done freehand with the classic underlining tail - fashionably worn here by our second baseman DW.

After a few years of running around calling ourselves 'the Veterans' in the mid-90s, I was asked to submit a small logo design for the top corner of our shirts. We had just lived thru a season wearing a HUGE new full torso script design (not mine) shouting out 'VETS' (you could read it from space) and the general opinion was that it was too big and something smaller was needed. So I gave them this pocket-sized label which lasted until we made the big switch over to our current costumes. The tiny Veterans logo is now a collector's item.


The only other drawing I've done for the ball club, was in the early 90s when I thought it would be a good idea (but wasn't really) to produce an entire series of baseball cards featuring each member of the crew. This was in the days before the modern computer, so I was reduced to using the time-consuming, old fashioned 'Letraset' process to add each player's name onto their picture card. T'was an ordeal, lemme tell ya. I've still got my set of cards from that particular team (there's been many changes in the lineup since then) but looking back, the only thing that satisfied me with those packages (which included flat slabs of gum inside just like real baseball cards) was the cartoon cover wrapping. (Reminds me of a catch I once made.)

Only 4 players remain on the team today from that opening day roster of 30 years previous. (Photo below). The uniforms of 2007 may look more dashing and debonaire, but those old 'yuenies' of '79 seemed to get us up the line to first base alot faster. Or was it just that our legs were younger back then.