During a recent visit to Minneapolis/St. Paul, I kept seeing statues of various characters from the comic strip Peanuts everywhere. You know. Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the gang. And Snoopy. Especially Snoopy.
When I think of Charles M. Schulz, the comic strip’s creator, I have always thought of California. I knew he had lived in Needles, California (home to Snoopy’s cousin Spike in the comic strip) for about 2 years as a child. I drove through there in 2007, during an epic Route 66 road trip. It struck me as a bleak, dreary, depressing place to live. It’s in the Mojave Desert, and still has a population of less than 5,000 people to this day. I can imagine that Needles contributed to the lonely, melancholy tone of Schulz’ comic strip. I also know there is a Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California, and I hope to visit it one day.
But it turns out that, aside from that brief Needles residency of his youth, he didn’t move to California until he was 36. He lived there until his death at age 77. Even though he spent more years in that state than any other, I learned on this recent trip that he was born in Minneapolis and grew up in St. Paul. That’s a very good reason for those cities to be proud.
So I’ll leave you with the many iconic Peanuts statues that I encountered during my visit. Enjoy!
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